Trouble at NOAA
A slimmed down National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in an era of disasters exacerbated by climate change…what could possibly go wrong?
What does the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) do?
NOAA’s weather forecasting is an essential aspect of the American experience.
As NOAA’s own website states (PTO emphasis added),
From daily weather forecasts, severe storm warnings, and climate monitoring to fisheries management, coastal restoration and supporting marine commerce, NOAA’s products and services support economic vitality and affect more than one-third of America’s gross domestic product. NOAA’s dedicated scientists use cutting-edge research and high-tech instrumentation to provide citizens, planners, emergency managers and other decision makers with reliable information they need, when they need it.
A 2021 paper by the American Meteorological Society found that the US population obtained over 300 billion weather forecasts each year. And while most Americans rarely go to the National Weather Service’s website for their forecast (the NWS is managed by NOAA), most of the sources Americans turned to relied in some form on NWS data or forecasts.
Yet, the current administration has proposed cutting the NOAA’s budget by 27%, or $2bn.
Within the federal government, NOAA sits under the Commerce Department, and therefore falls under the leadership of Howard Lutnick. In what appears to be a fairly cross-government policy, when Lutnick entered office he implemented a policy whereby he would review any contract worth more than $100,000. In May, it was reported this new approach had largely ground the agency to a halt as everyone waited for Lutnick to clear a review backlog of over 200 NOAA contracts.
Staffing cuts
Since January, ~2,000 people have left NOAA’s workforce due to a combination of 1) employees taking the government up on offers of ‘early retirement’ and 2) probationary workers being let go. The NWS has lost ~600 personnel (out of ~4,200), approximately the same number the service lost during the period between 2010 and 2024.
In May, it was reported that 30 of the NWS’s 122 forecasting offices did not have a chief meteorologist on staff and 50% of these offices were down 20% of their staff. These mounting shortfalls led five former NWS leaders to write an open letter warning that these increasing vacancies could cause “a needless loss of life.”
While the NWS has been understaffed for a while, the recent cuts are straining the already stretched staff and exposing more blindspots. Earlier this year, there was no on-duty forecaster working overnight in Kentucky during a series of strong storms because of the staffing shortage. This year is the first time a local NWS forecast office has not been monitored 24/7 in the agency’s recent history.
Ending data collection
On their own, staffing shortages would be troubling. But when coupled with government cuts to data collection efforts, this will lead to faulty forecasting and insufficient warning systems.
Climate research
In a sign of the administration’s end-game, the drafted federal budget released earlier this summer eliminates NOAA’s funding for climate research as well as research into extreme weather events like storms and tornadoes. One notable cut is to the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. Since 1958, data from Mauna Loa has been instrumental in charting the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Three other stations around the world (located in Alaska, American Samoa and the South Pole) work with Mauna Loa to track carbon dioxide levels and all three, also operated by NOAA, face closure.
Tracking the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at Mauna Loa Observatory
The government’s recently passed spending law also rescinds ~$60mn in funds that had been allocated to NOAA for climate and weather research by the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act.
Military satellite data
Citing “a significant cybersecurity risk,” the government is ending a military satellite program used by forecasters to detect when hurricanes are rapidly intensifying in strength. As one meteorologist explained, these satellites work like an MRI on the human body, finding information otherwise hidden to the naked eye that allows for “more accurate hurricane watches, warnings and evacuations.”
While the satellites will still operate, at least for a bit, starting around July 31 the Pentagon will no longer share the data publicly. Other satellites can try to fill the gap, but it will take more time to gather the data and heighten the risk for people exposed to incoming storms.
Below, the image on the left is from a lower resolution satellite while the image on the right is the more advanced satellite used by the Defense Department. The image on the left is less useful for triangulating a storm’s location and measuring its intensity.
The end of (recorded) billion dollar disasters
As climate change effects intensify, the number of (inflation-adjusted) billion dollar disasters in the United States has continued to climb. Policymakers and businesses have used a NOAA-administered database of publicly available, nonpartisan data on these disasters to perform analyses to help anchor risk assessments.
But that is now over.
In May, the Trump administration announced the end of NOAA’s program tracking billion dollar weather and climate disasters. Instead of more closely tracking these sorts of disasters, and trying to use this as the basis for measuring improving / worsening conditions, the Trump administration has abandoned it.
On inflation-adjusted terms, the number of billion-dollar disasters appears to be on an upward trajectory.
Local community efforts
The Center for Heat Resilient Communities, a program with a budget of just $2.25mn, was cancelled the day before the group was set to announce a collaborative effort with over a dozen city governments to address the problem of urban heat. When this program was established, the hope was that this could set an example for how to develop a workable urban heat plan, and work with local communities to address their specific needs (since problems vary city to city and neighborhood by neighborhood).
The administration also stopped work on a tool designed to help communities assess both the current and future risk of climate change on extreme rainfall. This tool would have lessened experts’ reliance on historical data, and instead focus on the evolving risk that comes with climate change, to design regulations and build more resilient infrastructure. A 2023 report found that ~20% of the US could expect to experience a once in 100-year storm every 25 years. How important is this work? The NWS has already issued more than 3,300 flash flood warnings this year, a new record, in what has been described as the “year of the flood.”
The impact of these changes
These staffing shortages and budget cuts come on the heels of 2024, when the National Hurricane Center1 had its most accurate forecast period on record, and in the midst of what meteorologists are predicting will be another active Atlantic hurricane season.
Hurricane forecasting has gotten more accurate over time.
But now, much of this is being left up to chance.
Earlier this year, John Morales, one of the most well-respected meteorologists in Florida, warned viewers the cuts to NOAA and the NWS would have a major impact on his ability to warn Floridians about incoming hurricanes. He brought this home by telling a story about how he had been able to confidently forecast the impact of 2019’s Hurricane Dorian, at the time assuring viewers that the data indicated the storm would skirt past the state.
“I am here to tell you I’m not sure I can do that this year…Because of the cuts, the gutting, the sledgehammer attack on science in general.”
Brian McNoldy, a hurricane expert at the University of Miami warned Politico that, “there is no sugar-coating it: Hurricane forecasts will undoubtedly be worse after this loss [of the military satellite coverage]…For anyone near a hurricane-prone area, this is alarmingly bad news.”
The private sector?
Can the private sector step in the breach? Perhaps. Start-ups using more advanced artificial intelligence models are growing and their forecasts are getting better at predicting long-term (e.g, 7- to 10-day) forecasts than ever before. However there is a catch: right now they rely largely on freely provided public data collected and coordinated by the US government, specifically NOAA and the NWS.
Globally, weather forecasting has become more accurate, but forecasting 10 days out is still an inexact science.
In any case, just consider this: privatizing public safety in the interest of government efficiency (ostensibly), what could possibly go wrong?
Was the response to the Texas floods impacted by the cuts to NOAA/NWS?
By all accounts, the NWS did a good job providing sufficient warning and accurate forecasts in the lead up to the deadly flooding in Texas earlier this month. Instead, the issue appears to have been staffing shortages which hindered the agency’s effort to coordinate with local officials on how to prepare for floods. While some of these roles have been vacant since before Trump entered office, the number of vacancies has recently doubled.
One of the vacant roles? The regional office’s warning coordination meteorologist, which has been open since the former occupant left earlier this year after accepting the early retirement offered by the Trump administration.
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Even if these positions had been staffed, there is no way of knowing if lives could have been saved in Texas.
But one thing is certain, it could not have hurt.
And that is why this matters.
It is impossible to completely eliminate the risk that comes from severe weather. Even if NOAA and NWS were fully operational and able to produce 100% accurate forecasts and provide sufficient warning, people would still be at risk.
But to reduce the mitigation efforts to save a few bucks or because you wave away climate change as a non-entity is a problem.
Quite simply, the changes to NOAA and the NWS will make people more vulnerable to the impact of severe weather, whether that be storms or heat waves, which are growing more frequent and more powerful because of climate change.
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Cheers!
The NHC sits within NOAA