But the Noaa is now threatened. As reported by the Associated Press and others, the agency already extended by the 13,000 people faced a profound cup of more than 1,000 of these employees mandated by the Trump administration – a decision following a prior purge of around 1,300 at the end of February. Staff discounts have not only implemented the NOAA capacity to carry out its main monitoring and warning chore concerning the next serious weather events, but they also hinder its ability to carry out fundamental research on climate change – took place to help humanity better prepare for environmental upheavals.
“The NOAA works a lot with the climate,” explains Keith Seitter, former executive director of the American Meteorological Society and currently a professor of environmental studies at the College of the Holy Cross. “It is of extremely important importance in terms of planning for our future, to know how to adapt to the changing climate and to understand what we need to prepare for. In all these things, the Noaa is a really key actor. »»
The NOAA current cuts were equally poorly informed and predictable. Project 2025, the conservative manifesto whose policies are increasingly adopted by the Trump administration, includes a section on page 674 of the 900 -page document directed by “Breaking the Noaa”. On the next page, the agency is described as “one of the main engines in the climate change alarm industry”.
But the Noaa and others are right to be alarmed. The last months have seen forest fires linked to the climate in Los Angeles and elsewhere; An increase in so -called atmospheric rivers – narrow and narrow strips of airborne water vapor which cause local floods and worsens in a warming world; And, in other places in the United States and elsewhere, increasing droughts. Last year was also the first in which the world crossed the 1.5 ° C threshold of warming on the pre-industrial levels that the Paris climate agreement declared a reference to avoid that the point of the planet in an irreversible climate disaster. Environmentalists warn that the land is making a fever and, with the latest layoffs of the NOAA, we started to dismiss the doctors.
“These layoffs have endangered us,” said Alice Hill, the main energy and environment of the foreign relations council. “They actually increase the risk for Americans if we consider the best way to prepare for the worst extremes that climate change causes. The first step in resilience or adaptation is early alert. »»
Find out more: The fires show the reality of living in a world with 1.5 ° C of warming
Regarding the weather and the climate, it is not only the NOAA that has been reduced; NASA also bleeds. In an email of March 10 to journalists, the space agency announced that in response to federal instructions to reduce its workforce, it closed the office of technology, policy and strategy, and the office of the chief scientist – a decision that affects climate studies.
“NASA does research and advanced sciences,” explains Hill. “He observes the elevation of the sea level of space. It has the best global analysis of the surface temperature. All of this contributes to our understanding of how climate change takes place, and with this understanding, decision -makers can make choices that leave people more security. »»
Some of the NASA cuts could also hit American companies in the wallet. According to Hill, studies show that 74% of fortune companies 100 regularly use NASA earth science data to support commercial operations, logistics and risk management “. Some of these decisions are to anchor planes and bring cargo ships to the port of any security before dangerous storms.
These are the NOAA cuts, however, with the agency’s exclusively earthy portfolio – as opposed to NASA literally from another world – which are likely to do the most damage. Seitter quotes not only the fire hose of the climatic and meteorological data that Noaa collects, but the way it is calculated and modeled like another vital service which could be at risk.
“All this data must be controlled by quality, verified, then assimilated in these models of massive weather prediction,” he says. “The NOAA is responsible for all this work, and it is not insignificant. It is a large part of the investments that are made at the Noaa each year. »»
Late these prediction models and you compromise both lives and treasures. Rice points to the Estimates of the Chamber of Commerce showing that each $ 1 spent on resilience and climate preparation saves $ 13 in damages.
The NOAA cuts will lead to a domino effect in the entire table of agency organizations. It is not only the NWS which is nested within the NOAA. The agency supervises five other smaller departments, including the Office of Marine and Aeronautical Operations, the National Marine Fisheries Service and the National Ocean Service.
“There is the Ocean side of the Noaa,” says Seitter, “and it is the people who watch fisheries and work with communities to ensure that we have adequate fish reserves to feed our country. This can be less dramatic compared to bad weather, but they are also really important functions. »»
The NOAA also works with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), another institutional function which could be injured by the staff cuts. “”[FEMA] Coordinates with people from the National Weather Service and other people from the NOAA to ensure that they use their installations in the best possible way, that they attended their assets so that they can enjoy having the right things before before before before before [a] Storm strikes, ”explains Rice.
Find out more: Mass layoffs at the NOAA sparkle concerns on weather conditions, climate research
The reduction in the workforce that makes everyone hurts people beyond the United States, most countries do not have satellite technology and the buoy that America is for acquired. This means that they must rely on American data and predict assembly and prepare for extreme weather events. And, underlines Rice, the more sophisticated AI becomes, the more meteorology will be based on it to predict and follow storms – a more development that will require American innovation and initiative. “The NOAA would be well placed to direct the burden of a better AI in terms of public good for weather forecasts,” she said.
All the losses that accompany staff and the budget for reducing the NOAA will do little to achieve the ostensible objective of the White House and the Ministry of Government (DOGE) to reduce waste, fraud and abuse. Eliminate all staff of 13,000 people from the NOAA and you have only reduced 0.43% of the three employees of the federal government. With regard to portfolio savings, the annual budget of $ 6.6 billion in the NOAA represents only 0.097% of the 6.75 dollars billions spent during the year 2024. Compare this to the cost of climate change: in 2024, the United States experienced 27 weather or climate disaster events, each with losses exceeding $ 1 billion. Predding extreme weather events, prevent catastrophic losses of life and goods, and better understanding climatic trends that represent such a danger for humanity are much cheaper than cleaning the mess – and tending to the dead – after a disaster.
