“NSF NCAR’s research is crucial for building American prosperity by protecting lives and property, supporting the economy, and strengthening national security,” Busalacchi said in a statement. “Any plans to dismantle NSF NCAR would set back our nation’s ability to predict, prepare for, and respond to severe weather and other natural disasters.”

The administration’s intent was broadcast by Russell Vought, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, who posted on social media that NSF would be “breaking up” NCAR and described the center as a source of climate “alarmism.” Vought said weather-related research considered essential would be moved elsewhere, but did not specify which programs would be retained, where they would be relocated or on what timeline.

NCAR: The Infrastructure for Infrastructure

Founded in 1960, NCAR is an NSF-sponsored federally funded research and development center widely regarded as a central hub for atmospheric and Earth-system modeling in the United States. Its Boulder-based Mesa Laboratory and affiliated facilities house long-running climate and weather datasets, advanced atmospheric and hydrologic models, research aircraft and high-performance computing systems.

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NCAR’s modeling systems and datasets are embedded in operational forecasting and planning workflows used by agencies including the Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA and state departments of transportation, as well as by utilities, insurers and engineering firms. NCAR-supported models inform flood-frequency estimates used in floodplain mapping, wildfire behavior projections used in mitigation planning, aviation weather forecasts and long-range climate assumptions increasingly required for transportation, water and coastal infrastructure design.

That body of work spans multiple decision horizons used in infrastructure planning and operations. The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model is widely used to simulate extreme rainfall, wind and wildfire behavior that affect transportation operations, utility systems and emergency response.

Long-term climate projections from NCAR’s Community Earth System Model (CESM) are used to stress-test infrastructure designs against future heat, precipitation and storm-intensity scenarios, particularly for assets expected to operate for decades.

During active wildfire events, NCAR atmospheric transport modeling is also used to forecast smoke movement, informing utility shut-off decisions, aviation operations and construction site safety planning.

“It’s surreal to me that the entirety of the research office within NOAA that provides such daily tangible benefits to the country has been called out for elimination,” Dan Powers, executive director of CO-LABS, an organization that promotes Colorado research, told the nonprofit Boulder Reporting Lab.

Federal Research Priorities, Political Pushback

The proposal is the latest salvo in sweeping reductions proposed across the National Science Foundation’s research portfolio. NSF’s fiscal 2026 budget request to Congress seeks about $3.9 billion in discretionary funding, down more than 56% from the agency’s fiscal 2024 current plan. The Research and Related Activities account, which funds much of NSF’s core science work, would be cut by roughly $5.1 billion, or about 61%.

While the NSF budget request does not single out NCAR by name, it reflects a sharp reprioritization toward artificial intelligence, quantum science and technology commercialization, alongside steep reductions across geosciences and research infrastructure programs. Scientists and research managers say that shift places long-standing Earth-system research assets at risk.

“NCAR is quite literally our global mothership,” Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University and chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy, wrote in response to the plan. “Dismantling NCAR is like taking a sledgehammer to the keystone holding up our scientific understanding of the planet.”

Congressional Democrats have framed the proposal as part of a broader effort to scale back federal climate and weather research.

Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, said in a statement responding to a leaked OMB budget passback that the approach amounts to dismantling core science capacity underpinning weather forecasts and resilience planning.

“Forget efficiency; this is sabotage,” Huffman said in a statement released earlier this year from his office. He added that the proposal is “a five-alarm fire for anyone who values public safety, coastal resilience, and the foundational science that underpins our nation’s weather forecasts.”

Colorado’s congressional delegation also weighed in. In a joint statement, Rep. Joe Neguse (D) and Sens. Michael Bennet (D) and John Hickenlooper (D) said NCAR and its employees “are leading the nation’s climate science research, delivering life-saving breakthroughs that provide early warnings for natural disasters and deepen our understanding of Earth’s systems.”

They characterized efforts to dismantle the institution as “deeply dangerous and blatantly retaliatory” and vowed to fight them “with every tool we have.”

The NCAR proposal overlaps with earlier plans to shutter NOAA’s Boulder-based research laboratories, raising concerns about compounded impacts to federal forecasting capacity concentrated along Colorado’s Front Range.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) released a statement on Dec. 16 acknowledging speculation surrounding NCAR while cautioning that statements alone do not constitute formal action. “Colorado has yet to receive information about the Trump administration’s intentions to … dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research,” he wrote, adding that, “[if] true, public safety is at risk and science is being attacked.”

The governor emphasized that “climate change is real, but the work of NCAR goes far beyond climate science; NCAR delivers data around severe weather events like fires and floods that help our country save lives and property.”

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The Unknowns for Engineers and Owners

How NCAR could be dismantled remains procedurally unclear. As an NSF-sponsored major facility operated by UCAR, any breakup would likely require changes to cooperative agreements, funding allocations and congressional appropriations.

As of Dec. 17, NSF has not issued a formal directive outlining a restructuring plan. UCAR said it has not been instructed to wind down operations or relocate programs; that uncertainty alone injects risk into infrastructure planning.

Many design standards, permitting reviews and resilience frameworks rely on the continuity of long-term datasets and validated models developed and maintained at NCAR. Fragmenting those capabilities could complicate regulatory review and introduce uncertainty into project planning, especially as exposure to extreme weather increases.

“Rich or poor, weather affects us all,” Karen McKinnon, a climate scientist and professor at UCLA, wrote on LinkedIn. “NCAR has been supporting science that allows us to better understand and predict the weather, and how it is changing — and we need this information more than ever.”