A formerly sunken boat lies on cracked earth at Lake Mead National Recreation Area near Boulder City on May 10, 2022Image: keystone
December 22, 2025, 7:27 p.mDecember 22, 2025, 7:27 p.m
International science is increasingly criticizing the US government’s plans to close one of the world’s most important climate research centers. According to US media reports, numerous experts emphasized that the decision would not only cause considerable damage to the USA itself, but also to global weather and climate research. Experts from Germany also expressed alarm at the request of the Science Media Center (SMC).
Data and infrastructure used worldwide
The planned closure of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, is a “big shock” for international atmospheric and climate research, scientists said.
The US National Center for Atmospheric Research Center in Boulder, Colorado.Image: keystone
The center has been a central hub for research, data and training for decades. The NCAR also provides weather and climate models used worldwide, extensive data sets, supercomputers and measurement infrastructure. Many of these offerings were set up as open community resources and formed the basis for research in Germany and Europe.
The director of the Leipzig Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS), Andreas Macke, described the announced closure as hardly comprehensible, especially for a country like the USA, which is heavily affected by extreme weather events. Europe must now take greater responsibility and expand its own atmospheric research, as he told the SMC.
Trump administration justifies move with “climate alarmism”
In a commentary in the British Guardian, two experts described the move as an ideologically motivated attack on climate science. US Budget Director Russ Vought said last week that the NCAR is one of the largest sources of “climate alarmism” in the US. Important research activities such as weather research should therefore be relocated to other institutions.
The National Center for Atmospheric Research was founded in 1960 and employs several hundred scientists. It researches atmospheric processes from cloud formation to air chemistry to global climate models and operates powerful supercomputers. The institute has so far been financed primarily from US federal funds. (sda/dpa)