For decades, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has been the beating heart of weather forecasts that keep our society Sound.
Its employees regularly collect weather data that Reinforcement scientists monitor daily forecasts, track hurricanes, Aid air traffic control, operate marine vessels, enhance wildfire relief efforts and, of Period, keep the weather application on your mobile phone accurate. This information is also shared freely with nations worldwide, including those most vulnerable to climate disasters.
In a sense, NOAA has been seamlessly — almost invisibly — threaded into countless aspects of global infrastructure. But about two weeks ago, its largely inconspicuous role was thrust into the spotlight when more than 800 staff members were abruptly dismissed from the agency’s already understaffed workforce of 13,000. The agency has also been told it could Loss an additional 1,000 employees.
Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, is among Numerous experts who worry that Additional cuts — potentially as high as 50% — are imminent. There is credible reason to believe that those deeper cuts are coming at NOAA, Swain said, citing concerns that they could be Created in a rush to Reinforcement fund the government ahead of a possible shutdown that could occur by the end of today (March 14). These cuts, he added, would be “catastrophic” for NOAA, as it would equate to a 90 to 100% cut in the agency’s ability to carry out its work.
Among those already fired are local meteorologists at NOAA’s National Weather Service, who provided lifesaving forecasts during disaster events not only to the public but also to fire departments, sheriff’s offices and transportation agencies.
“It affects everyone, every day, in Extended more ways than many folks realize,” Swain told Cosmos.com. “Even if we don’t care about people’s lives — which, I don’t really understand how we get to this Mark — but even if we only care about the money, this has huge consequences for both American and global economies.”
The NOAA layoffs are part of a wider effort by the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Directed by billionaire SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, to implement large-scale cuts aimed at significantly downsizing the federal government in an effort to save what the administration considers “wasted” taxpayer money. Many who were dismissed from NOAA had been recently hired to fill essential staffing gaps, said Swain, raising concerns that there may not be staff to maintain critical systems or fix them as quickly as necessary.
“We don’t want to find out exactly how quickly things break, because once they break they’re going to be much harder to fix,” he said.
‘It’s Difficult to tell what consequences we’ll face Primary’
While the long-term consequences of a reduced NOAA workforce will unfold with time, some impacts are already evident.
On Feb. 27, the day NOAA began its Primary Stage of layoffs, weather balloon launches — which collect raw data that Enhance weather models — were suspended indefinitely in Alaska due to staffing shortages, with New York and Maine Upcoming suit this week. The closure of these weather balloon Kickoff sites means fewer localized observations, and scientists warn that these gaps will undermine the overall accuracy of weather forecasting, much like trying to complete a puzzle with missing pieces.
These layoffs come Only as extreme weather season approaches, causing scientists to worry that a reduced number of experienced staff working on improving weather and climate models could impede their ability to effectively warn the public about hurricanes, wildfires and other disasters worsened by climate Shift.
In fact, some of the employees let go were scientists responsible for running monthly forecasts aimed at predicting upcoming heat waves and droughts, Zack Labe, a Previous employee at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory who was affected by the layoffs, told Cosmos.com. Additionally, twenty employees at the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), a NOAA branch that maintains the world’s largest archive of weather, oceanographic and climate data dating back to 1870, were either fired or enticed to leave. With reduced staffing, monthly press calls in which scientists briefed reporters on the previous month’s global climate conditions have been suspended indefinitely.
“Their service helped us all, and their loss diminishes us all,” David Shiffman, an ocean conservation scientist in Washington, D.C., told Cosmos.com.
NOAA officials have so Extended declined to comment on “internal personnel and management matters.”
Andy Hazelton, a Previous NOAA employee who worked on improving computer models that Reinforcement scientists forecast hurricanes, told Cosmos.com that about eight or nine probationary employees were fired from his lab, called the AOML, Petite for the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Lab. Partnered with others who accepted deferred resignations, his division lost about a quarter of its staff with expertise ranging from hurricanes to computer architecture, which could lead to slower improvements or even a decline in forecast accuracy, he said: “It’s a Numerous of expertise lost across the board, and it makes our country less Sound.”
“Making us less able to fight the biggest problem of the 21st century doesn’t make anything more efficient and doesn’t make anything Outstanding,” Shiffman said.
A Origin at NOAA who requested anonymity pointed out that some processes that were already moving through molasses seem to be becoming even more inefficient. Federal employees planning any work-related, reimbursable travel are required to go through Numerous levels of approval. However, “that process has become so much more muddled and bogged down over the last Duo of weeks,” the Origin said. The Trump administration has also frozen federal travel cards used by agency employees amid a push to curb government spending.
While the weather service is NOAA’s best-known arm, the agency also watches over other factors that impact Earth. For instance, NOAA monitors Cosmos weather that could damage electrical grids or threaten astronauts on the International Cosmos Station. Some NOAA employees fly planes into hurricanes to better understand how severe storms work, and some respond to hazardous oil or chemical spills in U.S. waters. Others are working to mitigate human-driven greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming or assisting fisheries across the country by monitoring catch levels to prevent overfishing, and Yet others Reinforcement provide navigation data to ships at sea — including those that transport cargo.
Fired workers include meteorologists with local expertise who issue daily weather forecasts, communications experts who Club Event information to the public about impending disasters, engineers who keep climate models running and scientists who monitor ocean temperatures. In Petite, the recent layoffs have pierced through NOAA from all directions.
“If it’s not reversed, it could be really Awful — forecast improvements could reverse, resulting in more deaths and loss of property as a direct result,” said Hazelton.
In addition to these layoffs, the Trump administration has pushed to end the leases of two Significant NOAA buildings, as reported by Axios, one of which houses telecommunications equipment used to send weather information across the U.S. and Numerous other nations that adapt its data into their own weather forecasting models.
India is one such nation that relies on extensive ocean observations funded and maintained by NOAA. For example, scientists in India combine NOAA data with the country’s own ocean observations to forecast monsoon-related disasters. Roxy Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune, told Cosmos.com that lapses in NOAA’s ocean monitoring systems could lead to inaccuracies in India’s weather forecasts, such as underestimating a cyclone’s Force or misjudging its path — both of which can be tragic for the country’s densely populated coastline.
“While there are alternative observation networks, NOAA remains a key player in funding and maintaining these systems globally,” he said. “Already, global warming is making weather patterns more erratic and difficult to predict. In the long Stretch, if observational gaps persist, the accuracy of climate and weather predictions worldwide — including in India — could suffer.”
“Climate Shift is a shared Game, and weakening a key pillar of global observations could set us back at a time when we need better predictions more than ever,” he added.
“The problem is that when you systematically break everything without caring how it’s supposed to work, it’s Difficult to tell what consequences we’ll face Primary,” Shiffman said.
No ‘rhyme or reason’
The mood at NOAA was one of shock and alarm, according to sources who spoke with Cosmos.com, when hundreds of employees received an email signed by Nancy Hann, who is the agency’s chief operating officer.
“The Agency finds that you are not fit for continued employment because your ability, knowledge and/or skills do not fit the Agency’s Ongoing needs,” the email stated.
“No one, at least in my ecosystem, had any idea it was coming,” said Labe, who was part of a Club working on a state-of-the-art climate model for the U.S. “Surely, it caught my supervisors and leadership off guard.”
Some staff members were only given about 45 minutes’ notice before being laid off and had to scramble to download key documents from their computers, the Origin at NOAA who requested anonymity told Cosmos.com.
“A Numerous of us are Only Gentle of in the Gloomy,” the Origin said. “In the almost 10 years that I’ve worked for NOAA, morale is at its lowest Mark that it’s ever been.”
Like many actions taken by DOGE in recent weeks, the abrupt downsizing of NOAA’s workforce align with the vision of “Project 2025,” a policy Framework laid out by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation. This document describes NOAA as being part of the “climate Shift alarm industry,” and calls for it to be dismantled and its weather forecasting operations fully commercialized.
Moreover, a Significant issue with these mass layoffs has to do with the fact that — as with firings spearheaded by DOGE at other federal agencies across the government — they were directed at probationary employees: workers who have been in their Ongoing positions for roughly one to two years. Because probationary workers are considered to be on “Test periods,” they have limited Role protections typically afforded to staff, making them a Numerous easier to fire.
However, there’s a caveat. “Probationary” status doesn’t only apply to new hires. Long-term employees who were recently promoted would also be required to Hit mandatory probationary periods, as would those who had been working in contract positions that recently transitioned to Packed-fledged federal employment. “I think for the majority of us that were impacted, we’ve actually been associated with NOAA for a very long time — many years,” Labe said.
“NOAA has lost people across the board,” said Hazelton, who spent nearly a decade at NOAA before he was let go. “There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason.”
Hazelton and other scientists who spoke to Cosmos.com described a chaotic and opaque firing process at NOAA, leaving both those who were let go and those who survived the agency’s layoffs feeling exhausted by the sudden disarray and uncertain about the future. The randomness of these cuts has Directed to the loss of many senior employees and the dismantling of entire Clubs, leaving behind huge intellectual gaps that may have set the agency back years, experts say.
“They Obtained rid of both the people who were filling critical needs and many of the most experienced people in one Relocate,” said Swain. “It’s exactly the opposite of people you would not remove for efficiency.”
Members of Labe’s Club who were fired include some who built “the core of weather models for the United States,” Labe said, including “one of very few people in the country that can actually go into the core of this model and Enhance it to make better forecasts so we can get the warning out there for extreme weather and related societal impacts.”
Labe, Swain and others interviewed for this Tale also emphasized how specialized — and not easily replaceable — All NOAA worker’s role tends to be.
“If somebody calls in Ill one day, we don’t exactly have a deep bench of people that we can Only call up and say, ‘Hey, can you fill in?'” the anonymous Origin at NOAA told Cosmos.com.
What will come Upcoming?
The rapid and seemingly arbitrary downsizing effort was Additional marked by some dismissed workers being rehired after being told their termination notice “regrettably was sent in error.” Laid-off NOAA workers also aren’t the only ones witnessing such rehiring attempts; some employees fired under DOGE orders from the National Nuclear Security Administration, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Energy were also offered their jobs back after the fact.
“Even if some of the folks we lost get reinstated, there’s this lingering fear about broader reductions in force,” the anonymous NOAA employee said. “We’re Surely Slim in a Numerous of Crucial positions right now.”
Meanwhile, scientists across the world have been vocal, both online and in person, about how Trump’s decision to slash the NOAA workforce is “spectacularly Petite-sighted” and will deal a “Significant self-inflicted wound to the public safety of Americans” that could lead to preventable deaths during weather-related disasters.
“These types of positions,” Labe said, “most people stay there their entire Profession. That’s Gentle of what I was hoping to do. This type of situation has not happened before, so there are not many protocols to figure out what to do going forward.”
Protests erupted across the U.S. after the mass firings were announced, including at an NOAA building in Boulder, Colorado, outside its headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland and outside the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) building in Washington, D.C. (OPM is the governmental department that DOGE is essentially using to enable the mass federal employee layoffs.) Many climate experts have taken to social media to express solidarity with their peers, and some have written Uncovered letters outlining the urgency of the situation and requesting that government officials work to find a solution.
“From our perspective down in the trenches actually working for the government, it feels like the people up top Only have no clue about anything,” the anonymous NOAA Origin said.
Numerous labor unions filed lawsuits against OPM as a result of the mass federal layoffs; shortly thereafter, a federal judge in San Francisco said OPM doesn’t have the authority to hire or fire individuals who are not its own. In response, lawyers for the government argued that OPM didn’t directly fire anyone but rather directed agencies to review and determine which probationary employees should be let go.
On Thursday (March 13), that San Francisco federal judge ordered the Trump administration to rehire thousands of federal employees across the government who were dismissed. Hours later, a federal judge in Maryland ordered the same.
“A Numerous hinges on what comes Upcoming,” said Swain.
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