Trump administration moves to dismantle NCAR, tying weather forecast disruption to political feud

A plan to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, and move its functions elsewhere is taking shape in Washington as part of the Trump administration’s broader effort to shrink federal climate research. Russell Vought, director of the White House budget office, announced the proposal on X on Tuesday night, saying the center would be eliminated and that critical weather work would be relocated. The move came hours after the cancellation of $109 million in federal environmental and safety grants for Colorado, amplifying concerns about political retaliation amid a national push to recalibrate climate science funding.

The timing, and the stated aim of reducing the size of the federal government, has raised questions about whether the NCAR move is a budget decision or a political maneuver tied to a dispute with Colorado Gov. Jared Polis. Polis has clashed with the White House over a range of issues, including the handling of a high-profile state election case. An anonymous White House official told The Washington Post that Polis “isn’t willing to work with the president.” While the White House has provided little detail on the dismantling plan, supporters and critics alike say the action would reverberate across the weather and climate enterprise in the United States.

NCAR, founded in 1960 and administered by the National Science Foundation, is a central hub for climate and weather research in North America. It provides state-of-the-art data, computing resources, and technology to 129 university partners, and its facilities host supercomputers, heavily instrumented aircraft, and Earth-systems modeling. The center helped develop the Dropsonde, the instrument used by hurricane hunter aircraft to measure temperature, pressure, and humidity in tropical storms, and it performs real-time operational forecasting for military applications and wildfire modeling. In the eyes of many researchers, NCAR is not just a national asset but an international one: a repository and engine for climate and weather science used by scientists around the world.

“NCAR is is quite literally our global mothership,” climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe wrote in a post after the news broke. “Nearly everyone who researches climate and weather — not only in the US, but around the world — has passed through its doors and benefited from its incredible resources.” Antonio Busalacchi, president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), which manages NCAR for NSF, echoed a similar sentiment, stressing that the center’s mission extends beyond any single country.

As of midweek, Busalacchi said UCAR had not received formal guidance from Washington beyond Vought’s post, leaving researchers in a state of uncertainty about how and where NCAR’s programs would continue. Even within the scientific community, there is no consensus on how to re-create the centralized capabilities that NCAR provides. Daniel Swain, a UCANR colleague and extreme-weather expert, argued that weather and climate research are inseparable in practice and that moving components of NCAR could fragmentation the nation’s research infrastructure. “There is no clean separation between weather and climate,” Swain said in a livestream. “It’s the same atmosphere. It’s just different timescales.” He noted that many scientists rely on NCAR’s computing power and data access to conduct research and produce the visualizations that inform policymakers and the public.

The potential loss of NCAR comes as Boulder has faced an elevated wildfire risk warning, underscoring how NCAR’s work underpins predictive capabilities that help utilities and communities prepare for dangerous conditions. Local power provider Xcel Energy preemptively cut power in anticipation of the risk, illustrating the practical consequences of advanced weather forecasting for public safety. Swain noted that accurate forecasts can enable preemptive measures that reduce risk and damage, even as the broader question of funding and organizational control for NCAR remains unresolved.

The broader political signal accompanying the NCAR plan has drawn attention to Project 2025, a conservative blueprint endorsed by several administration officials that advocates shrinking the federal climate research apparatus. Supporters argue that consolidating or relocating programs would save money and reduce redundancy, while critics warn of lost scientific capacity, slower weather and climate forecasting, and diminished U.S. competitiveness in a field where accuracy and timeliness save lives and property.

Colorado leaders highlighted the potential spillover effects of any NCAR bifurcation. Polis referenced other cuts affecting the state, including a $66 million grant for a rail-safety mechanism in northern Colorado, an $11.7 million allocation to electrify Fort Collins’ vehicle fleet, and a similar amount to Colorado State University Pueblo to study powering rail vehicles with hydrogen and natural gas. Polis condemned the reported plan as a direct attack on science and warned that public safety would be at risk if critical research and forecasting capabilities were diminished. “Climate change is real,” Polis said in a statement. “But the work of NCAR goes far beyond climate science. NCAR delivers data around severe weather events like fires and floods that help our country save lives and property, and prevent devastation for families.”

Representative Joe Neguse, a Colorado Democrat who represents the Boulder area, called the move “a deeply dangerous & blatantly retaliatory action by the Trump administration.” In a post on X, Neguse described NCAR as a world-renowned scientific facility and pledged to pursue all legal options to oppose the directive.

If NCAR’s functions are redistributed, the scientific community warns that the loss of a centralized, well-funded infrastructure could slow progress across a wide range of disciplines, from wildfire modeling and precipitation forecasting to climate projections and the development of new measurement technologies. Critics caution that a fragmented system would likely drive up costs, reduce data sharing, and create inefficiencies that would ripple through universities, federal partners, and military applications.

The timing and rationale behind the proposed dismantling remain unresolved, and what happens next could hinge on congressional action, budget negotiations, and potential litigation. But for many researchers, the central concern is clear: the United States could be ceding a critical edge at a moment when accurate weather and climate information are becoming more essential to public safety, economic stability, and national security.