So a major shockwave has just hit the atmospheric
science community this week. I mean, a genuine
earthquake. A huge one, yeah. The White House
announced plans to, well, to dismantle the National
Center for Atmospheric Research. NCAR, as most
people in the field call it. This news came late
Tuesday night, December 16th, 2025. And it has
sent ripples not just through Boulder, Colorado,
where NCAR is based, but... really across the
entire global scientific community. It's a move
that many, many leading experts are calling a
catastrophic step back for American science.
We're talking decades of progress at risk. It's
a profound moment. So today we're going to unpack
what's happening, what NCAR actually does, and
why this is so much more than just a budget cut.
Welcome to Meteorology Matters, the podcast that
dives deep into the science, chaos, and stories
behind the weather that shapes our world. This
show was created by meteorologist Rob Jones.
Now let's get into today's episode of Meteorology
Matters. So this all centers on a very specific
directive coming from the highest levels of government.
Let's start right there. Who exactly announced
the plan to break up NCAR? And more importantly,
what was the official reason they gave? The announcement
came from Russell Vought. He's the director of
the Office of Management and Budget, the OMB.
Okay. And he didn't mince words. He declared
the intent to functionally break up the National
Center for Atmospheric Research. And the justification.
It was. Well, it was explicitly political. Vought
labeled NCAR as, and this is a direct quote,
one of the largest sources of climate alarmism
in the country. Climate alarmism. Wow, so that
phrase right there, that tells you a lot about
the motivation, doesn't it? It really does. It
frames the research not as objective science,
but as some kind of politically motivated advocacy.
And this fits into a broader pattern we've seen
of targeting research that deals with climate
change. Exactly. But here's the interesting little
caveat he offered, almost like an attempt to
soften the blow. What was that? Vought promised
that any vital activities, such as weather research,
will be moved to another entity or location.
So they're suggesting they can perform this kind
of surgical extraction. Keep the good science,
the daily weather forecasts, and just get rid
of the bad science, the long -term climate stuff.
That's the idea they're putting forward. It sounds,
you know, maybe reasonable on the surface if
you don't know the science behind it. But is
that even possible? I mean, can you actually
draw a clean line between weather research and
climate research? No, absolutely not. OK. It's
a fundamental misunderstanding of the science.
Right. As basically every climate and weather
expert has pointed out since this announcement,
there is just no clean separation. It's the same
atmosphere. It's the same atmosphere, the same
physics, the same fluid dynamics. It's just a
matter of timescale. You know, weather is what
you're getting today, this hour. Climate is the
average of that weather over, say, 30 years.
Precisely. So the tools you use to understand
one, the supercomputers, the models, the observational
data, are the exact same tools you need to understand
the other. So if you start taking a sledgehammer
to the infrastructure that supports climate modeling,
you are by definition damaging the infrastructure
that supports weather forecasting. You can't
degrade one without degrading the other. It's
that simple. The whole premise is flawed from
the get -go. And the reaction from the scientific
community was immediate. Right. Especially at
the annual American Geophysical Union meeting,
the AGU, which was happening in New Orleans when
the news broke. Oh, the timing was just devastating.
The mood there was described as profoundly somber,
almost like a funeral. I can imagine. That's
the biggest gathering of Earth scientists in
the world. It is. And this wasn't just, you know,
professional concern. For many, it felt deeply
personal. We heard from graduate students, early
career researchers. They felt the sadness instantly.
It's their future. It is. There was a graduate
student, Mohammed Shizaybali, who put it perfectly.
He said atmospheric science is fundamentally
built on collaboration, and NCIR is the pathway
through which we collaborate. It's the central
hub. It's the hub, the meeting place, the shared
library of tools that everyone depends on. And
this announcement came after a really tough year
for American science in general. Right. This
wasn't an isolated event. There have been major
federal funding cuts, scientists being fired
or pushed into early retirement. Thousands of
them. So this felt like the culmination of a
long term erosion of the systems that let science
function in this country. And you could actually
see the statistical proof of that instability
right there at the conference, couldn't you?
You could. Attendance at AGU was down by a third.
A full third. Wow. From about 30 ,000 attendees
normally down to 20 ,000. And you saw fewer recruiters
from universities, from federal agencies. That's
a huge drop. It reflects this profound uncertainty
that's plaguing the entire field. I mean, if
you're a graduate student, why would you commit
the next five or six years of your life to a
field where the primary research institution
might just disappear? It's a huge gamble. Now,
let's shift focus to Boulder, Colorado, the home
of NCAR. Because the local reaction was it was
furious And it was grounded in very practical,
everyday realities. Hundreds of protesters gathered,
not just for NCAR, but near the Federal Facilities
for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
or NOAA, which is another agency facing huge
cuts. And this wasn't just a small group of scientists,
right? No, not at all. This was organized by
community groups like Forever Indivisible Boulder.
You had elected officials there. Representative
Joe Naguse, Senator John Hickenlooper. The community
sees NCAR as more than just a lab on a hill.
Absolutely. They stress that NCAR has made a
huge impact on humanity since 1960. And on a
more local level, it provides hundreds of really
important, well -paying jobs for the Boulder
economy. It's a cornerstone of the community.
And this is where the story takes a turn that
is just powerfully ironic. You couldn't write
it. The protests happened just after Boulder
County got absolutely hammered by a severe wind
event. We're talking winds over 100 miles per
hour. Extreme winds. So extreme that the utility
company, Xcel Energy, had to preemptively cut
power to tens of thousands of customers because
the fire danger was off the charts. So people
are in their homes. The power is out. These incredible
winds are howling. And what are they doing? They're
on their phones, checking the internet for the
latest NCAR wind speed readings. No way. Yes.
They were relying on data from the very institution
being threatened. in the middle of a crisis to
know how dangerous it was outside. That perfectly
illustrates the disconnect doesn't it? It's the
ultimate example. One of the protesters pointed
it out saying that this crucial local life -saving
data source would just go away if NCAR is disestablished.
So on one hand you have this political argument
about alarmism and on the other you have people
literally using NCAR's data to protect their
homes and their families in real time. It's a
stark contrast. It really brings the stakes of
this whole debate down to a very real, very personal
level. To really understand what's at stake,
we need to dig into what NCAR actually is. Because
it's not just another government lab, is it?
It has a really unique structure. It's completely
unique and it was set up that way for a very
specific reason back in 1916. The idea was to
create a centralized resource to tackle atmospheric
problems that were just too big, too complex
for any single university to handle on its own.
So how does that work? Who actually runs it?
It's operated by a non -profit consortium called
the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
or UTR. Okay. Think of UTR as a kind of... a
managing partner, it's made up of 129 North American
universities. So it's the academic community
itself that stewards NCAR, ensuring its resources
are available to researchers and students all
across the continent. And the funding comes primarily
from the federal government. Its core funding
does, yes. About half its budget, roughly $123
million for fiscal year 2025, comes from the
National Science Foundation, the NSF. But it
gets other grants, too, right? It does. It pulls
in grants for specific projects from places like
NASA, even the Pentagon, for mission -critical
work. So it has a diverse portfolio, but that
NSF money is its lifeblood. And it's a huge operation.
830 staff, most of them in Boulder. It is. And
you can't talk about NCAR without mentioning
the building itself. The Mesa Laboratory. It's
an architectural icon. It really is. Designed
by the world -renowned architect, IMP. The same
architect who did the Louvre pyramid? The very
same. And he designed the lab to echo the flat
irons, those beautiful sloped rock formations
right behind it. It's made of this pink -hued
concrete that blends right into the landscape.
It's a statement piece. What kind of statement?
That fundamental science is important, that it
deserves a home that is as foundational and as
beautiful as the work being done inside it. It's
a landmark. And that physical presence... really
underscores its role, which scientists describe
as the global mothership. That's a term you hear
a lot. Global mothership. An international treasure.
Because that centralization is the key to its
success. The whole idea was to have a coordinated
interdisciplinary approach that you just couldn't
get in a single university department. That's
about pooling resources. Exactly. It's so much
more efficient. If you have one massive world
-class tool that 129 universities can share,
the science that comes out of it is exponentially
better than if you had 129 separate, smaller,
less powerful tools. Okay, so let's get specific.
What are the key resources NCAR provides that
a university, even a huge one, just can't replicate?
Let's start with the big one. Supercomputing.
Right. So NCAR operates one of the world's most
powerful supercomputing centers, and it's specifically
designed for Earth system modeling. We're talking
about running models that simulate the entire
planet's atmosphere. The entire planet. Or, you
know, incredibly high resolution models of a
single hurricane or tracking air pollution from
wildfires as it moves across continents. These
are calculations that are just... mind -bogglingly
complex. And why can't a university just, you
know, buy its own supercomputer? It's the scale.
I mean, a university might have a computer cluster
for a department, but the systems at NCAR are
on another planet. The hardware costs tens, even
hundreds of millions of dollars. And that's just
to buy it. That's just to buy it. Then you have
the building to house it, the massive cooling
systems to keep it from melting, and a whole
team of specialized engineers and technicians
to keep it running 2047. So when scientists say
losing this would cause severe damage to the
field, they mean that for thousands of researchers
around the world, their work would just stop.
Full stop. It wouldn't happen. It's the difference
between having a family car and having access
to a Formula One race track with a full pit crew.
They're not comparable. That's a great analogy.
So that's the first key resource. What's the
second? The second is its collection of specialized
observational resources. The crown jewels of
this are the research aircraft. Like the C -130s.
Exactly. These are heavily modified military
transport planes that are basically flying laboratories.
They are packed floor to ceiling with custom
radars, sensors, and all kinds of data collection
instruments. And any researcher from a member
university can propose a project to use one of
these planes. That's the beauty of it. A professor
from Penn State or the University of Oklahoma
can write a grant to fly into the heart of a
hurricane or to study cloud formation over the
Arctic. And NCAR provides the plane, the pilots,
The Whole 9 Yards. A professor at Penn State,
Ken Davis, said that trying to do that kind of
airborne research on your own as university would
be totally impossible. You'd have to buy a C
-130 for starters. And maintain it and hire specialized
pilots who can fly in extreme weather and engineers
who can keep these incredibly complex instruments
working. NCAR centralizes all that cost and logistical
headache so the scientists can just focus on
the science. So NCAR is essentially a massive
force multiplier for the entire scientific community.
That's the perfect way to describe it. Okay,
so let's go back to that charge of alarmism.
Yeah. How does the leadership at NCAR and UCI
respond to the accusation that their work is
political. The president of UCR, Antonio Busalacchi
Jr., has been very clear and very direct about
this. He says NCAR produces apolitical science,
period. Their job is an advocacy. Their job is
not advocacy. He says the scientists are very
careful not to cross over that line. Their mandate
is to collect the data, run the models, and report
what the science says. That's it. It's up to
others to decide what to do with that information.
Exactly. It's the role of policymakers, of the
public, to interpret the significance of the
science. The scientists just provide the objective
facts about how our planet works. And that idea
seems to be baked into the institution's DNA,
right down to its name. It really is. The founders,
back in 1960, showed incredible foresight. They
deliberately named it the National Center for
Atmospheric Research, not just weather research.
Why was that distinction so important? Because
they knew from the very beginning that climate,
the long -term study of the whole system, was
going to be a crucial part of their mission.
They defined their scope as extending from the
ocean floor to the Sun's core. A full spectrum
approach. A full spectrum, holistic understanding.
They knew you couldn't get better at short -term
weather forecasts without understanding the long
-term dynamics of the entire planet. So attacking
the institution now is really an attack on that
foundational 60 -year -old mission. about the
theoretical damage, the loss of infrastructure.
But let's ground this in really practical outcomes.
What has NCAR actually done for people's safety
over the years? The list of tangible, life -saving
contributions is just extraordinary. And these
are technologies that are in use every single
day all around the world. Let's start with aviation.
This is a big one. A huge one. Back in the 1980s,
NCAR's research was absolutely essential in developing
the technology to detect and warn against a phenomenon
called wind shear. And its extreme form, the
microburst. Right. A microburst is this intense
localized column of sinking air, usually near
a thunderstorm. If a plane hits one during takeoff
or landing, it can cause a sudden catastrophic
loss of lift. And this was the cause of several
major fatal crashes in the 70s and 80s, wasn't
it? It was a huge problem. So NCAR scientists
pioneered the development of specialized Doppler
radar systems, both on the ground at airports
and on the planes themselves. And these systems
can actually see the wind shear before the plane
gets there. They can. They detect those subtle
shifts in air movement that signal a microburst
is forming. And NCAR didn't just build the hardware.
They developed the algorithms and the warning
protocols that get that information to air traffic
controllers and pilots in real time. So what
was the result of putting these systems in airports
all over the world? The result is staggering.
The UCR president, Antonio Busulaki, said that
since these systems became mandatory in the 1990s,
there has been zero loss of life from these weather
events. Wait, say that again, zero? Zero. An
entire category of weather -related aviation
disasters has been effectively eliminated because
of this research. It has saved, in his words,
countless lives worldwide. That alone feels like
it justifies the entire existence of the center.
Just that one achievement. It's a monumental
contribution to public safety. And then you move
on to other extreme weather, like hurricanes.
What was NCAR's big breakthrough there? The drop
zone. This is a brilliant piece of technology.
It's a small tube -shaped instrument that they
release for research aircraft, like the Hurricane
Hunters, flying high above the storm. And it
just falls through the hurricane. It parachutes
down right through the eye wall in the most intense
parts of the storm. And as it falls, it's constantly
measuring and transmitting data, temperature,
pressure, humidity, wind speed, wind direction.
So you're getting a real -time vertical slice
of the inside of the storm. Exactly. Something
you can't get from a satellite. This technology,
and I quote, revolutionized the understanding
of tropical cyclone structure. And better understanding
leads to better forecasts. Much better forecasts.
That data feeds directly into the prediction
models and significantly improves the track and
especially the intensity forecasts. The impact
is so fundamental that this technology has been
cited in over 400 scientific papers in the last
25 years. So we have life -saving hardware for
aviation and hurricanes. What about the software,
the models that power our daily forecasts? NCAR
is the backbone for that too. They developed
and they continue to maintain the weather research
and forecasting model, which is known as WRF.
WRF model. Right. WRF is basically the foundational
software used by forecasters all over the world.
Your local TV meteorologist, national weather
agencies, private companies, a huge number of
them are using WRF to predict everything from
thunderstorms to major winter storms. So if NCAR
goes away... Who maintains that code? Who keeps
it updated? That is the multi -million dollar
question. It's an incredibly complex piece of
software used by thousands of people. Its stability
and continued improvement would be immediately
at risk. And then there's the climate modeling
site. Which brings us to the Community Earth
System Model, or CESM. This is NCAR's masterpiece.
It makes it so special. It was the first fully
coupled global climate model that was designed
from the ground up to be open and accessible
for the entire university research. community.
It's the gold standard. Can you give us a real
world example of how it's used to, you know,
protect people? A perfect example is the research
that came after the February 2021 cold snap in
Texas. The one that crippled the power grid.
Exactly. Hundreds of fatalities, billions in
damage. Researchers use CESM to run these incredibly
complex experiments to understand what large
scale atmospheric patterns lead to those kinds
of extreme cold outbreaks. So they're trying
to find long range signals to better predict
them in the future. Right. And that kind of research,
which is vital for protecting our national energy
grid, is just flat out impossible for a single
university to do. You need the supercomputing
power and the sophisticated model framework that
NCAR provides through CESM. So the same institution
is helping with aviation safety, hurricane forecasts,
and national grid security. And wildfire behavior,
and air pollution modeling, and even providing
real -time operational forecasts for the military
at critical sites in Alaska. It's not just abstract
research, it's deeply integrated into our national
safety and security. And it's so important understand
that this threat to NCAR isn't happening in a
vacuum. It's part of a much bigger picture, isn't
it? It is. Leaders in the scientific community
are calling this a fundamental disruption of
the systems that allow science in this country
to function. It's systemic. So we're seeing a
broader erosion of the entire scientific enterprise.
That's right. It's not just the NCAR announcement.
The administration has been accused of removing
critical climate data from government websites,
of freezing or canceling grants that were already
approved, of weakening environmental regulations
that were based on science. It creates this atmosphere
of instability. It does. And if you lose a place
like NCAR, the risk isn't just that your forecast
is a little less accurate tomorrow. The real
danger is a slow, steady decline in our ability
to ever get better. We stop making progress.
We stop making progress. And as experts have
warned, being more in the dark about what is
coming puts lives and property at risk. It's
a slow motion crisis. And to see how deep it
runs, you just have to look at what's happening
in our oceans. You're talking about the Ocean
Observatories Initiative, the OOI? I am. another
massive critical piece of scientific infrastructure
that's now on the ropes. What is it, exactly?
It's a huge network of buoys, moorings, and thousands
of instruments at four key locations in the oceans
around the U .S. And it cost a fortune to build.
It did. The NSF spent $386 million to build it
starting in 2009. The whole point was to have
this continuous 25 -year -long stream of data
on the health of our oceans. Like taking the
ocean's vital signs. Perfect analogy. It's monitoring
long -term shifts in ocean circulation that drive
our climate, but also short -term events like
marine heat waves that can devastate commercial
fishing. And there's a geological aspect too,
isn't there? A huge one. One of the observatories
is off the coast of Oregon, and it's basically
sitting on top of an underwater volcano that's
overdue for a major eruption. It's also monitoring
the Cascadia subduction zone. This is essential,
life -saving geological research. So this massive
Nearly half billion dollar system is in place,
but it needs to be maintained. And that's the
crisis. It needs about 40 million dollars a year
to maintain its 900 instruments and the administration
has slashed that funding. What's happening to
the instruments now? The project leaders are
saying things are starting to break. They've
had to reduce how often some instruments take
samples just to save money. And they estimate
they only have about 12 more months of operation
before the whole thing goes dark. To spend all
that money to build it and then just let it fall
apart. It's just staggering. It really is. And
the same thing is happening at NOAA, the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. What
are the cuts looking like there? The White House
has proposed cutting NOAA's budget by 27 percent.
And even more alarmingly, they want to completely
eliminate the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric
Research, or OAR. Which is what? OAR is the research
heart of NOAA. It's the part of the agency that
develops new forecast models and new technologies.
It's the engine of progress. And we're already
seeing layoffs at NOAA offices, including in
Boulder. And all of these cuts, they don't just
affect the federal agencies. They send shockwaves
through academia. This is maybe the most damaging
long -term effect. Universities depend on those
federal grants to run their labs and, critically,
to pay their graduate students. The next generation
of scientists. Exactly. And when that funding
becomes uncertain, the pipeline starts to break
down. We saw a really stark example at the University
of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography.
What happened there? They had to cut their incoming
class of graduate students by more than half.
From 22 students down to 10? And the school said
it was a direct result of the uncertainty around
federal funding for ocean science. That's devastating
for the future of the field. It is. And we're
even seeing a shift in the kind of research that
gets proposed. How so? Some universities are
moving away from research on how to slow climate
change, what's called mitigation, and focusing
instead on how to limit its effects, which is
called adaptation. Why the shift? The research
suggests it's a pragmatic political choice. There's
a bipartisan appetite for disaster preparedness.
So if you can't get funding to study how to stop
the problem, maybe you can get funding to study
how to survive it. But for the scientists who
have spent their careers building these incredible
long -term projects like the OOI, or NCAR's models,
their focus is much more immediate, isn't it?
It is. Their goal right now is simply, how can
we save what we built? And that brings us to
the political fight. We have to be clear here.
We're impartially reporting on what officials
in Colorado are alleging, but the timing of these
cuts... suspicious. It is. Multiple officials
and reports are suggesting a direct link between
the attack on NCAR and other Colorado funding
and a very public feud between the administration
and Colorado's governor Jared Polis. And this
feud centers on the case of a former county clerk.
That's right. A woman named Tina Peters, a former
Mesa County clerk who was convicted in state
court on felony charges related to illegally
accessing voting machines. She's serving a state
prison sentence. President Trump issued a symbolic
pardon for her, but because it's a state crime,
not a federal one, Colorado officials have refused
to release her. And the allegation is that cutting
funding for NCAR is direct retaliation for that
refusal. That is the direct allegation from multiple
Colorado officials. They've called it blatantly
retaliatory. And the timing is key. The NCAR
announcement happened at the exact same time
that $109 million in other federal grants for
Colorado were also canceled. And these weren't
climate -related grants. Not at all. This is
what makes it look so targeted. The cuts included
a $66 million grant for a critical rail safety
project. another grant to help Fort Collins electrify
its vehicle fleet, and money for Colorado State
University Pueblo to study powering trains with
hydrogen. These are infrastructure, safety, and
economic development projects. Exactly. So Governor
Polis came out very forcefully saying that public
safety is at risk and science is being attacked,
and he vowed a major fight. And that fight is
already happening on Capitol Hill. What are Colorado
senators doing? Senators Michael Bennett and
John Hickenlooper are basically using legislative
tactics to slow things down. They're holding
up a major government spending bill trying to
slow the process for as long as we can. And their
goal is to protect NCAR's funding. Specifically,
it's core funding from the National Science Foundation.
Senator Hickenlooper has said he's confident
he can get bipartisan support from Republicans
to keep that funding in place because they recognize
NCAR's national importance. And at the same time?
House Democrats are exploring legal challenges.
That's right. Led by Representative Neguse from
Boulder, it's a full court press because the
community understands what's at stake. As the
experts have said, losing NCAR would be a major
setback. and would have impact for decades to
come. So let's just summarize that cost one more
time. If this dismantling happens, what do we
lose? You lose that incredible collaborative
infrastructure that connects 129 universities.
You lose access to the supercomputers that power
thousands of research projects. You lose the
specialized research aircraft that make cutting
edge field science possible. And all of that
translates into a slow but steady decay in our
ability to improve forecasts. For everything,
wildfires, severe weather, aviation safety, long
-term risks, you're essentially taking a sledgehammer
to the keystone holding up our scientific understanding
of the planet. America loses its competitive
edge and our ability to prepare for the future
is fundamentally crippled. That's the bottom
line. We've seen that in the face of these cuts,
universities are shifting their research focus
from researching how to slow climate change mitigation
to studying how to limit its effects adaptation.
If research on future risks is cut or compromised,
how prepared can any community truly be for the
extreme weather events that NCAR currently helps
us predict? That's a question that should keep
all of us thinking about the fundamental, life
-saving value of our scientific infrastructure.
You've been listening to Meteorology Matters
created by meteorologist Rob Jones. We really
want to know what you think about the NCAR situation.
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