The Mcmurdo station in Antarctica, operated by the US National Science Foundation, has needs repairs and upgrades for decades.Credit: US National Science Foundation / Associated Press / Alamy
US President Donald Trump’s massive cuts in the government threaten the direction of the nation at the ends of the earth, say the scientists who work Antarctic.
By the presidential directive dates back decades, the United States is entering three research stations in Antarctica. Each summer, scientists descend on them eager to make discoveries, and each small winter team maintains the bases as a key national presence. American research in Antarctica has given revolutionary information on our planetAnd research stations are not only scientific centers. They are also an indirect indicator of geopolitical power; Without them, the United States could yield the soft power into Antarctica to other nations.
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A large part of this research and this influence is now in danger, say many scientists. American research in Antarctica is managed by The National Science Foundation (NSF), which Trump threatened with drastic budget and personnel cuts. He has already withdrawn the construction funds previously reserved to update the largest American Station in Antarctica, and his administration has fired and – under the order of the Tribunal – rehired several crucial program agents for research in Antarctica.
The uncertainty about what could then happen is to undermine the research plans for Penguin investigations to the studies of the universe. “People are looking over their shoulders,” said Sridhar Anandakrishnan, a glaciologist at the Pennsylvania State University in University Park. “They no longer know if the science they have been doing for decades more interests the NSF.”
“What is really useless is timing,” said Gary Wilson, geoscientist at Waikato University in Hamilton, New Zealand, and president of the International Scientific Commission for Research in Antarctica. “The global problems we face are urgent.”
Urgent work on ice
Of all science made in Antarctica, none is more urgent than that which seeks to understand the continent Mixture of ice, which feeds sea level elevation This will move millions of people in the coming decades. The NSF has supported many projects to study the loss of ice, coordinating the complex logistics of bringing people and equipment to distant areas using glaces, plans equipped with skiing and other polar infrastructure.
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Such work has included an American American project allocated 25 million US dollars over five years to study How fast the Antarctic Thwai Glacier loses ice loses ice. “It is a very small sum of money in relation to the cost of not understanding what is going on,” said Brent Milchew, a geophysicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge who studies the melting of the glaciers.
In one of the largest investments in the agency in the facilities, the NSF polar programs office spends more than 200 million US dollars each year to maintain civil infrastructure in the three American bases: the small Palmer station on an island off the Antarctic Peninsula, The large McMurdo station Near the Ross ice platform and the South pole station Amundsen – South Pole.
Even before Trump took office in January, the NSF struggled to finance the work of Antarctica. Stagnant budgets led to program discounts in the late 2010s, and COVVI-19 derailed years of work in the field. In addition to that, the NSF tried to rebuild the ruin infrastructure of McMurdo, but did not have enough money to do it.
Fears of work in the field
But last month, Trump canceled the NSF construction budget for the current financial year – which includes work on the reconstruction of McMurdo – Priorities for Congress Expenditure. Scientists fear that he is also trying to reduce the agency’s budget for financial year 2026: a preliminary document has been fled The Washington Post suggested a drop of 28%. Trump will publish his budget request in the coming months, although the agency’s final budget for next year, is decided by Congress, could differ considerably from this request.
If support for the Antarctic program is reduced, the NSF may not be able to finance substantial research for at least a few years. “It looks like a complete exercise in the blind hope of writing scientific proposals and submitting them,” said an American scientist who asked not to be appointed for fear of reprisals. In the worst case, the NSF could be faced with the decline in basic research. “Keeping the stations alive is the first imperative,” explains Michael Jackson, a geophysicist who worked at the NSF as an Antarctic Program Office until December. “Keeping stations viable for science is the second, and doing science is the third.”