It is a vast network for observing the world’s deep oceans, installed in 2016 at an initial cost of $368 million and designed to operate for 25 years. The Trump administration intends to remove in roughly fifteen months more than 900 technological instruments anchored in strategically important zones of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
What to know
- The Trump administration plans to remove more than 900 ocean monitoring instruments.
- The scientific network had been deployed in 2016 to track changes in the oceans over 25 years.
- The data collected are crucial for studying climate change and ocean currents.
- Scientists fear a major loss of information about the state of the world’s oceans.
A climate-skeptic budgetary bargain
For the Trump administration, stopping this network is primarily about reducing public expenditures. But its climate-skeptic stance is well known. Stopping the system would save about $48 million a year in operating costs. Yet the National Science Foundation declined to disclose the logistical cost of pulling these instruments. It is indeed a heavy operation, requiring ships to be sent around the globe to recover equipment sometimes anchored as deep as 2,800 meters.
The disappearance of these 900 measuring devices would remove an irreplaceable tool for assessing the global climate crisis. And this comes at a moment when the oceans absorb roughly 90% of the excess heat generated by human activities. These technologies allowed scientists to observe the Irminger Sea, a critical region for analyzing the AMOC, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, whose potential weakening worries climatologists due to the risk of major weather disruptions.
A “war on science”
On the congressional side, Democratic lawmakers rallied to condemn what they describe as systematic harassment of environmental research. Figures like Senators Edward J. Markey and Chris Van Hollen accuse the administration of seeking to hide scientific data to better sabotage the push for a green transition. And this comes at a time when the safety and activity of farmers, commercial fishermen, and coastal businesses along the East Coast depend heavily on forecasts of currents and flood risks.
The academic world and oceanography experts have also voiced deep frustration at the interruption of a program that was just entering its phase of full operation. For Craig McLean, former chief scientist of NOAA, the deliberate undermining of such a network of excellence will push the United States to the back of the global research ladder. It would undermine American environmental leadership on the international stage for years to come.
