Staffing cuts are affecting work at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
Kristoffer Tripplaar / Alamy
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says it will “discontinue” its monthly calls updating reporters on seasonal weather forecasts and the state of the global climate.
A spokesperson for NOAA says staffing issues – due to recent cuts, resignations and retirements under the administration of President Donald Trump – mean the agency “will no longer be able to support” the calls. However, they say the monthly reports compiled by the National Centers for Environmental Information, which is run by NOAA, will continue to be published.
Another reason the agency is ending the calls may be because of employees’ fear of running afoul of the new administration by speaking about climate change, says Tom Di Liberto, a former climate scientist and public affairs specialist at NOAA who was fired during widespread cuts in February. “They don’t want to be stuck between telling the truth and getting on the wrong side of political appointees,” he says.
During the monthly calls, NOAA scientists provide updates on a range of forecasts and measurements produced by the agency. In addition to information about global temperatures on land and in the oceans, the briefings include seasonal weather forecasts for the US and information on droughts. These calls also give reporters a chance to ask questions in order to better understand the new information.
In past briefings, researchers have openly discussed the role of human-caused climate change in driving record-high temperatures. But during last month’s call – the first held under the new administration – NOAA researchers avoided making any mention of climate change when discussing record-high global temperatures in January. The call was ended after New Scientist directly asked the researchers to address what role climate change played in the high temperatures.
Di Liberto says the agency has not explicitly instructed researchers not to mention climate change. But he knows from contact with current staff members that there is an atmosphere of fear about saying the wrong thing.
“It’s fear of being cut, but it’s also fear that the work they’re doing that is going to help people is going to stop, or fear of being told that they can’t say what they’re able to say based on the science,” he says.
Since January, the administration has fired almost a thousand people from the agency, and hundreds more have resigned. The administration is reportedly planning to cut more than a thousand more employees, a tenth of the agency’s workforce.
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