Staff cuts and freezing on international collaborations in a leading American science agency will have a “scary effect” on climate science and could “seriously degrade” the ability of Australia to predict the weather, warned scientists.
The Trump administration dismissed 880 workers from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on February 27and would have planned to reduce 1,000 More staff.
Australian meteorologists and scientists rely on the data and software of the NOAA for operational weather forecasts and long -term climate predictions, with collaborations between the two countries dating from decades.
Atmospheric data of Noaa satellites inform the office of meteorological forecasts of the Bureau of Meteorology, as part of an international agreement through the World Meteorological Organization. Professor David Karoly, a decorated scientist and climate advisor to the climate council, said: “It is used by all the countries of the world, not only in Australia.”
The Noaa satellites offer the BOM surface temperature observations (SST) in a timely manner, which are crucial to make forecasts from El Niño and La Niña.
Dr. Helen Beggs, a principal researcher who retired from the BOM last week, said that any significant decrease in the financing of the NOAA “may well reduce the availability of specific SST observations for operational and climatic applications both in the world and in the seas surrounding Australia”.
Although the nomenclature is also based on Japanese and European satellite data, the NOAA satellites provide the most precise and detailed SST data that the office uses in terms of operational level, said Beggs.
NOAA is also the main contributor to a global network of ocean observation platforms, including the Argo program of around 3,600 floats that record temperature and salinity in the world’s oceans. Cups affecting this SST observation network “would lead to gaps not only for Australia, but also for the world,” said Beggs.
A BOM spokesperson said that “no change in guidance or specific political councils has been received from the office of the office in the United States”.
Another important source of data comes from the defense meteorological satellite program at the NOAA, which has continued daily images of the concentration of sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctica since 1978. While other nations have exploited similar satellites, no other provides calibrated data over four decades.
Dr. Alex Fraser, specialist in remote sensing on the Antarctic Australian program, described polar satellites as an “absolutely crucial data set”.
“It is a cornerstone of our surveillance and our research and it is supplied almost real,” he said, adding that the extent of the research and surveillance carried out by the NOAA was “amazing”.
“Between NASA and Noaa, if we were to lose the capacities of one or both, we would be in a fairly dark place literally and figuratively, not knowing what is happening with the earth,” he said. “Given the extremely wide range of crucial work that is taking place at the moment, it is difficult not to feel a little worried about the future.”
Australian scientists also have close links with NOAA in development and use Climate models To predict future changes. They warn that new NOAA cuts would affect Australia’s own capacity to provide climatic projections and antarctic simulations.
The Australian climate simulator, known as the Nri access, is based on components manufactured by American government services, including an ocean model known as momwhich has been developed by the Noaa (GFDL) geophysical fluid dynamic laboratory.
A collaboration between the nomenclature, the CSIRO and four Australian universities, the access-nri software is used by researchers on the climate and the ocean across Australia.
Professor Nathan Binoff, the program manager of the Australian Partnership of the Antarctic Program, said that the oceanic model was “essential to the Australian national interest”.
“ Frightening effect ”
Oceanic models such as mom allow scientists to predict future temperature and ocean current changes, producing better projections for sea level increases and the amount of heat and carbon that the oceans will absorb.
“This is a scary effect on the whole of climate science,” said Bindoff about the Noaa cuts. “Science is normally entirely to provide the facts, to follow the planet, to try to explain why it changes.”
“It reminds me of the dark ages in medieval times – it is a suppression of knowledge,” said Bindoff.
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Professor Andy HOGG, director of norri access, described the United States as “the power” of climate modeling. “If they lose capacity, it will be at the world’s detriment,” he said.
However, Dr. Adele Morrison, an oceanographer at the Australian National University, noted that the mom model was “constantly under development” and improved, and any suspension in this process would be “a huge upheaval” for Australian scientists. “We do not have enough capacity in Australia to develop our own ocean model, so we will always depend on one of these large international or consortium laboratories,” she said.
“Currently, we work with (Noaa) to add the cavity capacity of the ice platform, looking at the small ocean pieces which are under the ice shelves on the banks of the Antarctic. These have not been in our models so far, and without scientists and GFDL software engineers, this new development simply does not occur.
“In the short term, we would always be able to move forward using the model we have,” said Morrison. But if the Noaa’s contribution to stop, “it would not take too many years” before developments in different international models make mom obsolete, she said.
Jan Zika, an associate professor at the University of New South Wales who worked on Mom6 – the last iteration of the model – during a four -month scholarship at the NOAA in 2023, expressed a similar concern. “What stands at night …, that is to say a small handful of people who really have the ability to translate what they have done in something that everyone can run.”
Zika received the correspondence of the colleagues of the Noaa “warning us not to communicate on sensitive problems via their institutional email”.
“There is a feeling that if bad things are said about the administration, even in tone, it could be harmful to them,” he said.
Professor Christian Jakob described the Noaa cuts as “a very sad and difficult situation for all those involved”. Jakob directs the Center of Excellence of the Arc for the 21st century weather, whose NOAA GFDL is an official partner. “Their role is to help us develop a new generation modeling system for Australia, as we use their ocean model,” he said.
NOAA staff have been informed that all international collaborations are suspended unless they are officially approved. The correspondence of a NOAA scientist, seen by Guardian Australia, suggests that the GFDL awaits a confirmation that it can continue to collaborate with the center of Jakob.
‘The climate is global’
“A large engine of meteorological research and climate is to improve the systems we use to make predictions,” said Jakob, citing cyclone Alfred and the role of precise weather forecasts in the preparation of communities a few days in advance.
“These predictions and research to improve them are a truly international business, in which we have openly shared information, models, data, software, tools. It is in fact the only way to work, because time is global and the climate is global,” he said.
“You cannot just remove a part – it will seriously degrade the quality of the predictions. Everyone benefits from this arrangement, including the United States. ”
On Tuesday, Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society warned that recent cuts “would affect public security and the economy – not only in Australia but around the world”.
In a press release, he warned against “modifying the roles and government responsibilities to monitor and predict the atmosphere and the oceans”.
“The atmosphere and the oceans are connected on a global scale and do not recognize political borders.”