The Loss of Anybody at NOAA is Directly Connected to Services Lost By Every Individual in the United States

---

---

Last Updated on: 10th June 2025, 08:24 pm

As summer approaches, keeping a lookout for Africa’s storms as they whirl toward our southern states and gulf coasts might be a bit more demanding. The summer and fall storms last season approached earlier and continued with unanticipated devastation later. Asheville residents are still collecting debris from Hurricane Helene of last year. And scenes such as this (below) are still the norm. More extreme weather disasters are the modern-day norm, tragically.

Hurricane Milton arrived about a week after Hurricane Helene last fall. Homeowners and condo owners I know are in deep, paying $50,000+++ to continue restorations as part of Florida’s Gulf Coast recovery efforts from Milton. They are also some of the lucky ones. Both storms claimed lives and destroyed entire communities.

That was all despite having reliable NOAA data of the coming storms. Although stunned, I knew the evening before that Helene was headed my way. As summer approaches, the idea of defunding (i.e., eviscerating) such critical state-of-the-art forecasting is simply absurd, ludicrous, and inhumane.

Bad news does not happen just because you are aware of its existence. It allows you to be prepared to take action to avoid the worst-case scenario.

Science.org reports: “The proposed NOAA cuts—which could be altered before the administration sends its 2026 budget request to Congress in the coming weeks—would cut funding for the agency’s research arm, the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR), to just over $171 million, a drop of $485 million. Any remaining research funding from previously authorized budgets would be moved to other programs. ‘At this funding level, OAR is eliminated as a line office,’ the document states.

“If approved by Congress, the plan would represent a huge blow to efforts to understand climate change, says Craig McLean, OAR’s longtime director who retired in 2022. ‘It wouldn’t just gut it. It would shut it down.’ Scientifically, he adds, obliterating OAR would send the United States back to the 1950s—all because the Trump administration doesn’t like the answers to scientific questions NOAA has been studying for a half-century, according to McLean.”

What does this mean in layman’s terms? According to the trusted and appreciated Union of Concerned Scientists, it means:

A significant drop in hurricane predicting accuracy

“The anticipated budget cuts include the closure of the University of Miami’s Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (CIMAS) and the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML). This would halt assistance for NOAA’s hurricane hunter missions, which provide critical data for hurricane forecasting models that anticipate the route and strength of hurricanes that make landfall in the United States.

“Further, improvements in hurricane forecasting by these institutions have led to nearly $5 billion saved per major US-landfalling hurricane. The total budget cuts that would close these institutions? $485 million. These 2 institutions alone save the American taxpayer tens of billions of dollars annually, far more than what they cost. Closing them makes zero financial sense and will cost us dearly, including in lives.”

An end to climate monitoring for farmers

“If this budget passes, the NOAA Regional Climate Centers (RCC) would shut down operations, which provide critical decision tools for farming communities across the United States. This includes products that factor long-term climate data into decisions for frost, drought, extreme precipitation, and even turf grass for golf courses. The RCCs further archive weather and climate data that are used for understanding trends in temperature and precipitation extremes.”

Coastal communities will be left on their own

“The memo calls for a slashing of the budget that supports the National Ocean Service, which provides information on tides, flood risk from extreme weather events, sea-level rise due to climate change, and water pollution for coastal communities.”

An end to US climate science leadership

“The proposed budget would close the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) in Princeton, New Jersey, which is the birthplace of weather and climate modeling. If this occurs, the US would be abdicating its leadership in the advancement of our understanding of the atmosphere, especially under climate change. If we can no longer predict the effects of climate change, communities in the United States will be left on their own, with no help in how they should adapt to changes in extreme weather events.”

As we watch our children and grandchildren accomplish self-learning and wide-ranging scientific achievements academically, how do we explain that the careers they want to follow to achieve climate change breakthroughs and adaptation are being cut and thrown to the wayside while environmental tragedies prevail?

These programs are essential to the future of the US economy, ranging from using machine learning to predict tornado outbreaks to studying how hurricanes increase swiftly. If this money is taken away, we will be unable to fund these initiatives that benefit all Americans, as well as assist curious young scientists who desire to change the world via research.

Young scientists under threat with nowhere to go

“It is critical that we stand up and fight for these institutions at this crucial moment. We must contact our representatives and name how these institutions, which we’ve been investing in for decades, benefit our livelihoods. Luckily, we’ve seen some US Representatives stepping up: here is a letter organized by Representative Wesley Bell, press releases from Representative Tonko and Senator Cantwell, and a letter organized by UCS and signed by 2,500 scientists calling on US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to protect the work of NOAA.”

Recently, The Guardian updated the fierce problem of amputating skilled scientific adaptation research. Workers fear that the Trump administration has shifted one of the US federal government’s key scientific institutions onto a “non-science trajectory,” endangering decades of study and leaving the US with ‘air that isn’t breathable and water that’s not drinkable.

“Workers and scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are warning about the devastating effects of agency cuts on science, research, and efforts to safeguard natural resources.”

“The loss of anybody at NOAA is directly connected to services lost by every individual in the United States,” said Rachel Brittin, NOAA’s former federal deputy director of external affairs.

The Guardian encapsulates the logical reasoning of a beneficial, intricate system that provides real-time data to counteract the worst-case scenarios:

“’Understanding things lets us make decisions that can put us on a track to things getting better. Knowing bad news doesn’t create the bad news. It lets you be prepared to take actions that may let you avoid the worst consequences,’ the Noaa scientist at Oar added on the Trump appointees and the authority they are being given over scientific decisions.

“‘Pretending that our resources are inexhaustible doesn’t make them inexhaustible,’ they added. ‘I don’t think people understand the arrogance of thinking: “Hey, I think I understand this, even though I know nothing about it.” This whole antithesis to experts, I don’t understand it. Would you want to do that with your own personal health? Why would you do it with any kind of complex system?’”

I followed my friend’s steady progress toward a safer, hurricane-proof Gulf Coast rebuilding. Only one bedroom remained unchanged when Milton caused a whirling in the other bedroom, which spun the massive bed and robust frame around repeatedly, knocking out the walls of their master bedroom. Or what was once.

The rest of the house needed to be partially rebuilt. Alas, it is my favorite old Florida home, once with the long dock I frequented, now gone. I spoke with her (kite surfing expert and Gulf Coast kayak guide) — who knows every nook of this part of the Gulf Coast — as she mused with me about changing weather patterns.

What will we know (ahead of time) about this year’s storms after the gutting of NOAA?

If you don’t want to fall for the hype and want to keep up to date on real news, a trusted source is the Union of Concerned Scientists. Here’s an excerpt from that article:

“How to protect yourself against disinformation.

“As federal agencies now under the control of Trump administration appointees and Musk’s DOGE begin to identify the public safeguards they plan to rescind or ignore, there will be a tsunami of lies sown by Trump and his industry supporters. The push to get rid of public protections will be well-funded and supported by powerful industries, who contributed heavily to elect Trump and followed up by sending him their wish lists of safeguards they want removed. While all of us are vulnerable to disinformation, UCS has resources to help you identify it, counter it, and stop it in its tracks.

“In the coming weeks and months, UCS will hold Trump accountable for his illegal, corrupt, and incompetent actions as he seeks to get rid of federal regulations that protect your health, the environment, workers, and consumers. Watch this space for more.”

Unfortunately, what we discover on NOAA today is not the true legacy of what we had, and may perhaps be the opposite.

Quoting NPR, “In his executive order, Trump instructed federal agencies to expedite the process for reviewing and issuing permits for mining on the seafloor in both U.S. and international territory. It will use a U.S. law from 1980, the ‘Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act.’ Scientists and environmental groups condemned the order, arguing that opening the deep seabed for mining could disrupt important marine ecosystems and damage the fishing industry.

“‘This is being planned on some of the least resilient ecosystems on the planet,’ says Douglas McCauley, professor of ocean science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. ‘It would have catastrophic biological consequences.’ Underwater mining can create plumes of sediment that could suffocate marine life and degrade the food webs that fish depend on, McCauley says.”

The New York Times continues and points to Trump circumventing a decades-old treaty:

“The executive order, signed Thursday, would circumvent a decades-old treaty that every major coastal nation except the United States has ratified. It is the latest example of the Trump administration’s willingness to disregard international institutions and is likely to provoke an outcry from America’s rivals and allies alike.

“The order ‘establishes the U.S. as a global leader in seabed mineral exploration and development both within and beyond national jurisdiction,’ according to a text released by the White House.

“Mr. Trump’s order instructs the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to expedite permits for companies to mine in both international and U.S. territorial waters.”