The White House is planning to dismantle a climate research center in Colorado, a decision that will not only affect climate science on Earth, but also our ability to understand space weather.
The National Science Foundation’s National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is currently under threat. White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought announced the administration’s plan to dismantle NCAR, referring to it as “one of the largest sources of climate discrimination in the country,” in a December 16 post on X.
The move is the latest in the Trump administration’s war on climate science, which has included proposals to cut research funding and purge information from government websites.
NCAR was founded more than sixty years ago to study the Earth’s atmosphere, weather and climate, but also conducts research on space weather, the activity of the Sun and how it affects the Earth’s magnetosphere. Two upcoming NASA heliophysics missions depend on work done by NCAR scientists.
It will be cloudy with a chance of cuts
Earlier this month, NASA chose to advance two heliophysics missions to improve understanding of our host star and the flow of charged particles it emits, also known as the solar wind.
One of those missions, the Chromospheric Magnetism Explorer, or CMEx, is led by NCAR scientist Holly Gilbert. CMEx is designed to study the red layer of the Sun’s atmosphere, called the chromosphere, in an effort to understand the origin of solar flares and find the sources of the solar wind’s magnetic field, according to NASA.
“These mission concepts, once developed in flight, will improve our ability to predict solar events that could damage the satellites we rely on every day and reduce the risk to astronauts near Earth, the Moon, or Mars,” Asal Naseri, deputy director of the heliophysics flight at NASA headquarters, said in a statement.
The Solar Transition Region Ultraviolet Explorer (STRUVE) is another NASA mission led by NCAR to study the Sun’s chromosphere and corona, which is expected to launch in 2029 and collect information on regions where the energy that powers solar storms builds up before being released.
“The chromosphere is the most important part of the solar atmosphere when it comes to storing and releasing magnetic energy,” said Alfred de Wijn, NCAR scientist and principal investigator of STRUVE, in a statement. “We know that the photosphere’s magnetic field is connected to the heliosphere, but we don’t know how it travels through the chromosphere.
What’s Next for NICAR
With the fate of NCAR hanging in limbo, it is unclear whether the proposed spacecraft will be able to see our star. Vought’s statement suggested that authorized research activities would be taken over by other agencies, but OMB did not share how it would make those decisions.
“[R]research at NCAR informs our understanding of the climate hazards caused by solar storms and the atmospheres of other planets inside and outside our solar system,” American Astronomical Society (AAS) president Dara Norman said earlier this month.
US lawmakers have backed legislation to reverse the White House’s proposed cuts to science research at NASA and other agencies, and face a January 30 deadline to pass spending bills to address the issue.
