Lower Standards at NOAA Threaten People, Places, and Public Trust in Science

Thursday, July 3, 2025

What is “gold-standard science?” According to an Executive Order published on May 23 meant to guide federal scientific endeavors, it has several characteristics such as being “collaborative and interdisciplinary,” “communicative of error and uncertainty,” and conducted in a manner that is “without conflicts of interest.” Few could argue against these qualities. Indeed, the Trump Administration purports that achieving “gold-standard science” is paramount to “restor[ing] the American people’s faith in the scientific enterprise and institutions that create and apply scientific knowledge in service of the public good.” 

At face value, this all sounds fantastic. The devil, however, is in the details. According to the Order, a political appointee—an individual who does not necessarily have any relevant scientific expertise—will be responsible for scientific oversight and enforcement. If the appointee rejects the scientific findings made by agency experts, this individual has the authority to “correct” them. Such a detail can only be described as political interference in the scientific process, which will endanger scientific independence and result in further declines in public trust in science. This has led thousands of scientists to condemn the Order in an open letter, characterizing it as “an escalation of the ongoing assault on science.” 

Ultimately, bolstering public trust requires: 

  • Integrity at the individual level to ensure that parties tasked with oversight of federal science do not impede research for reasons that are not grounded in fact or evidence.
  • Good-faith discussions about viewpoint diversity to distinguish legitimate scientific disagreements (i.e., disagreements within the expert scientific community) from misinformation and conspiracy theories.
  • Recognition of and appreciation for scientific expertise, including scientific institutions like universities and professional societies.
  • Trust in the administration to appropriately leverage scientific information to guide decisionmaking, even in instances where that information contradicts preconceived policy preferences. 

The goals of this Order, while admirable, are contradicted by actions taken to date. Attacks on American science and scientific institutions have been unprecedented and relentless. University scientists across the nation—some of the best in the world—have had to navigate billions of dollars in research cuts. Hundreds of scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) signed a letter dissenting from the views of its leadership, Director Jay Bhattacharya and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Well known for his skepticism of mainstream vaccine science, Kennedy removed all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices—the body that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccines. He then replaced them with individuals sympathetic to his own views. All in the name, so Kennedy says, of “restoring public trust.” 

While various scientific disciplines have attracted the ire of the Administration, perhaps none have been so blatant as the dismantling of climate research at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NOAA, a sub-agency of the Department of Commerce, is the federal government’s premier climate, weather, and ocean institution. NOAA and NOAA-funded scientists lead research that deepens our understanding of the climate system and the growing risks posed by human-caused climate change, advances our ability to predict extreme weather events, and informs conservation of marine ecosystems including socioeconomically important fisheries. Now, NOAA faces budget cuts of about $1.7 billion, roughly a 27% decrease relative to its 2025 budget. Under this budget proposal, NOAA’s research arm—the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR)—would be “eliminated as a line office,” according to an internal memo. 

While we do not yet know the full scope of the damage to NOAA science, below are a few examples of the agency's work and how it has been threatened thus far. 

Observations and Climate Services 

A key component of NOAA’s work is to monitor the state of the ocean, atmosphere, and climate. NOAA observations of various environmental variables are key to informing climate risks and keeping people safe. For example, balloon-based measurements of temperature, wind, relative humidity, and pressure feed into weather prediction models. The more balloons launched, the greater the area covered, and the better the model. However, staffing cuts across the National Weather Service (NWS)—the NOAA sub-agency tasked with weather prediction—have resulted in a decrease in the frequency with which balloons are launched, thereby limiting data collection. 

Indeed, about 600 NWS staffers are reported to have left their jobs over the last few months. And, while the Administration is trying to rehire to fill some of those vacancies, meteorologists say that the new hires won’t be sufficient to meet the needs of the Service. This all comes at a time when climate change is increasing weather-related risk. For example, scientists say that climate change makes rainfall events like the one that struck the Midwest and Southern U.S. in April 2025 more likely and more intense. Those scientists note that the early warnings conveyed by the NWS kept people out of harm’s way, but they conclude with an alarming message: “Nearly half of NWS field offices are facing vacancy rates of 20% or more, double the short-staffing levels of a decade ago.” 

Academic Partnerships 

In addition to the applied work of the NWS, NOAA oversees 16 “Cooperative Institutes”—collaborative laboratories housed within academic institutions across the country. Scientists working at Cooperative Institutes study a range of topics, including toxic algal blooms, fisheries, and storms. The Cooperative Institute for Modeling the Earth System (CIMES) at Princeton University is a world-leading modeling center that has advanced our knowledge of climate change and extreme weather, air quality, and marine ecosystems. Among its roster of scientists is Syukuro Manabe, who in 2021 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in the 1960s that laid the foundation for modern climate models. In April 2025, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced that he would terminate funding for CIMES. Lutnick’s reason? The research “promotes exaggerated and implausible climate threats” that “do not align with the Trump Administration’s priorities.” 

Public Outreach and Education 

At the most fundamental level, NOAA research is important because it helps Americans make informed decisions about their climate and weather risk. Public outreach efforts, however, appear to be disappearing right and left. The Administration terminated climate.gov, the NOAA Climate Program Office’s public-facing outlet designed to promote public understanding of climate science and risk. The NOAA National Center for Environmental Information has similarly stopped its accounting of U.S. billion-dollar weather and climate disasters, citing a misalignment with “priorities, statutory mandates, and staffing changes.” In recognition of the growing impacts of extreme heat on Americans, last year the Department of Commerce and NOAA funded two Centers of Excellence to educate the public and foster heat resilience strategies. Funding to both Centers was axed by the Administration. 

A Cloudy Outlook 

Much of NOAA's climate work is supported by funds from the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. As that money is increasingly called into question, one can only assume that deeper cuts to climate efforts will follow. 

What is unfolding at NOAA is a microcosm of the broader aggression levied against the field of climate science. The administration has once again signaled that it will pull the United States out of the Paris Climate Agreement. It has also abdicated the nation’s leadership in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—the U.N. body that produces authoritative assessments of climate science that are, somewhat ironically, often referred to as the “gold standard” of the field. Before her position was eliminated in March, former NASA Chief Scientist Kate Calvin along with other federal climate experts was barred from attending an IPCC meeting in preparation for its upcoming report. Calvin was selected to co-chair the section of the IPCC report that deals with climate change mitigation, and she is still listed as such on the IPCC’s website. 

The future of domestic climate assessment looks equally dim. Under ordinary circumstances, the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) would currently be coordinating its Sixth National Climate Assessment (NCA6). Required by statute, the National Climate Assessment is meant to inform the nation of climate impacts, risks, and potential responses. Since 1990, and including under the first Trump Administration, the report has been produced and published by experts across the federal government, universities, and other scientific institutions. It is intended to be the preeminent report on climate impacts and risks to Americans across the nation. In April, researchers working on the report were dismissed and told that “the scope of the NCA6 is currently being reevaluated in accordance with the Global Change Research Act of 1990,” according to POLITICO’s E&E News. The USGCRP website has since gone dark.  

Where the federal government has faltered, two scientific societies have stepped up. The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is facilitating nominations for U.S. scientists to author IPCC report chapters, and AGU is also collaborating with the American Meteorological Society to provide an outlet for the science that would normally be published in the National Climate Assessment. Thanks to these efforts, American scientists will still be able to participate in the international scientific process and Americans will have access to high-quality (dare I say, “gold-standard?”) climate research. 

Perhaps that is a point worth dwelling on. The mainstream scientific consensus on climate change—that it is real, human-caused, and will have negative consequences on human health, wellbeing, and society—is supported by the highest quality of science imaginable. Climate science is a field that is collaborative and interdisciplinary. It draws upon decades, if not centuries, of mainstream scientific fields like atmospheric physics and chemistry, oceanography, geology, and ecology. Climate scientists use multiple independent lines of evidence to arrive at their conclusions, and uncertainties are clearly communicated in carefully calibrated language that permeates the assessment reports of the IPCC and USGCRP. According to our best scientific understanding, it is “unequivocal that human activity has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land,” and we do so at great risk to our health and wellbeing. The largest uncertainties now pertain to how we will respond to these risks. That response has been less than golden, and interfering with NOAA science will only make things worse.