Now then, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR): The US government under Donald Trump continues with its dismantling of climate research institutions. In the past week it announced via the social platform of the former “special government employee” Elon Musk to dissolve the NCAR. The justification: the center is “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.”
The NCAR has its headquarters in Boulder, Colorado, and is a key pillar of climate science. It works with supercomputers that are also used by other institutions. With its long-term atmospheric research, it has been providing data since the 1960s that help with weather forecasting and thus also with modeling the risks of wildfires, floods and other natural disasters. Hurricane early warnings also originate from here. Aviation safety relies on NCAR information.
Trump’s Budget Office director Russ Vought explained that only activities that are deemed “indispensable” should be maintained. These should be “carried out by other institutions or at another location.”
The dissolution of NCAR would affect not only US research but would have worldwide consequences. International scientists work with the datasets, analyses, and models developed in Colorado. To the science magazine scinexx.de, Gerrit Lohmann of the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) in Bremerhaven said: “A complete buffering by the international community is neither realistic nor efficient, as expertise, infrastructure and long-term data are bundled at NCAR in a uniquely integrated way.”
Hilfe aus Deutschland
The AWI is already attempting, in cooperation with the University of Bremen, to rescue data from another US institution. Since the spring, it has provided NOAA with a platform for publishing its data. NOAA collects, among other things, information on natural disasters and weather events that have caused damages of more than one billion US dollars.
Scientists—not only researchers—conservatives, activists and politicians do not want to surrender NCAR without a fight. On Saturday, several hundred participants demonstrated in Boulder. The Governor of Colorado, Jared Polis, also sees the announced dissolution of the center as a political retaliation. He has repeatedly clashed with Trump, most recently because he refuses to release a former election official who is serving a nine-year prison sentence in Colorado for illegally manipulating voting equipment after the 2020 election. (with AFP)
