We’re all at risk if Trump dismantles this legendary lab

You may not know it, but you have benefited from the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

For more than half a century, the federally funded laboratory has been instrumental in developing weather models that have improved prediction of extreme events like hurricanes, saving lives in the process. Your go-to weather app can predict the future thanks in large part to the Lab, also known as NCAR. Its researchers also study air pollutants like wildfire smoke by flying planes through the plumes, helping to protect public health. More broadly, NCAR has been an undisputed leader in advancing climate science, gathering quantities of data and developing sophisticated models of Earth systems.

It is for this latter reason that Russell Vought, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, announced that the Trump administration plans to dismantle the operation. “This facility is one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country,” Vought wrote Tuesday on X. “A comprehensive review is underway and all vital activities such as weather research will be moved to another entity or location.”

In a separate statement released Wednesday, the National Science Foundation, which established NCAR in 1960, said it “remains committed to providing world-class infrastructure for weather modeling, space weather research and prediction, and other critical functions. To do this, NSF will engage with partner agencies, the research community, and other interested parties to solicit feedback to redefine the functions of the work currently performed by NCAR.”

The project has sparked widespread concern and negative reactions within the scientific community. “NSF NCAR research is critical to building American prosperity by protecting lives and property, supporting the economy, and strengthening national security,” wrote Antonio Busalacchi, president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, which manages NCAR on behalf of the NSF. “Any plan to dismantle the NSF NCAR would reduce our nation’s ability to predict, prepare for, and respond to extreme weather events and other natural disasters.”

If NCAR is dismantled, the void cannot be filled by other groups working in isolation, the researchers say. “This is the latest in a long line of actions that are helping to weaken weather and climate science in the United States,” said Kristina Dahl, vice president of science at the Climate Central research group. “And ultimately, all of us as residents of the country will pay the price, whether now or 10 years from now.”

The consequences of NCAR’s death would also reverberate internationally, as the center is a pillar of the global scientific community. Its weather and climate databases, for example, are essential resources for researchers around the world. “This would be a major blow not only to American science, but also to weather and climate science, forecasting and disaster resilience, all over the world,” Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said during a live broadcast Wednesday. (Swain is also an NCAR research partner.) “And I would even go so far as to say that it would be an incredible, really truly shocking, self-inflicted wound to American competitiveness as a whole at a very high level. »

Although the National Center for Atmospheric Research employs more than 800 people, its work extends to almost everyone in the weather, climate and disaster research communities, Swain added – and by extension, to the people who collaborate in these fields. Swain called NCAR a “singular institution” that doesn’t really have a comparable entity either in the United States or abroad. His research and models are ubiquitous and used by policymakers, scientific institutions and industries trying to adapt to climate change.

Researchers can also leverage NCAR’s supercomputing resources to process complex data. “It’s really a starting point for academic researchers across the country who want to conduct experiments with climate models,” Dahl said. “Because very, very few facilities in the country have this type of computing capacity.”

With their relatively modest budgets compared to the costs of disasters, NCAR and federal agencies, such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, actually pay enormous dividends to American society, in property and lives saved. (NSF has provided $123 million to NCAR in 2025, representing more than half the lab’s budget.) With ever-improving forecasts for hurricanes, for example, officials know which coastal communities to evacuate as a storm approaches. Conversely, they also know who they don’t need to evacuate, thus avoiding distress and saving money. By helping to predict wind events, NCAR helps electric utilities and communities prepare for the conditions that have started and fueled so many wildfires across the American West. (In May, the Trump administration stopped updating a billion-dollar federal disaster database. But according to Climate Central, which resurrected that database, the United States experienced 14 disasters in the first half of 2025.)

Overall, by better understanding how climate change makes disasters worse, the country will be able to better adapt to what’s coming as the planet continues to warm. “The research done at NCAR is an investment on the part of every taxpaying citizen in the United States, and it benefits all of us,” said Marc Alessi, a researcher specializing in climate attribution science at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “We are able to predict the weather several days in advance, warning of hurricanes, extreme precipitation and droughts. »

As with so many other attempts by the Trump administration to attack science, restructure federal agencies, and force states to abandon climate action, it begins as a plan, not an endpoint. Which means people can still call their representatives to object to the proposal, Swain said. “This is a topic for which there is extremely little public support and most likely bipartisan opposition in Congress,” Swain added, “if the right people are made aware of the problem quickly enough.”