One of Trump’s grudges now threatens America’s weather forecasts |
This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
One of the world’s leading climate, weather, and wildfire science research institutions is being targeted for elimination in what many of those affected see as President Donald Trump’s political vendetta against Colorado Gov. Jared Polis.
Key takeaways
• The Trump administration’s move to dismantle NCAR looks less like a budget decision and more like political retaliation, landing squarely in the middle of the president’s feud with Colorado Gov. Jared Polis.
• Cutting NCAR isn’t a niche science fight — it touches nearly every corner of US weather and climate forecasting, from wildfire modeling to the computational backbone universities rely on.
• Scientists say you can’t separate “weather” from “climate” the way Trump officials suggest, and eliminating NCAR would make the country slower and less capable at both.
• The plan mirrors the broader Project 2025 push to sideline federal climate research, raising real questions about how the US intends to navigate a world of escalating extreme weather without its top-tier science infrastructure.
Word that the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder would be broken up, with some of its functions moved elsewhere, came hours after the cancellation of $109 million in federal environmental and safety grants for Colorado, and one day after Trump took time during an Oval Office ceremony to excoriate Polis as a “weak and pathetic man.” Russell Vought, the director of the White House budget office, announced that the center would be eliminated in a post on the social media site X on Tuesday evening. His office did not respond to a request for further comment on Wednesday.
Trump’s beef with Polis stems from the jailing of a........