(Washington) The Trump administration announced Tuesday its intention to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder (Colorado), accusing this center, at the forefront of issues of global warming, of being alarmist.
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“The National Science Foundation will dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado,” White House Budget Office (OBM) Director Russ Vought wrote on his X account.
“This center is one of the main sources of climate alarmism in the United States,” he added. “A thorough review is underway and all essential activities, such as meteorological research, will be transferred to another entity or site.”
Founded in 1960, NCAR conducts research and trains scientists around the world on issues related to climate change.
Its dismantling would constitute “a major loss for scientific research,” said Kevin Trenberth, a former NCAR researcher and honorary professor of physics at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, quoted by the Washington Post.
The Democratic governor of Colorado, Jared Polis, indicated in a statement that his state had not been officially informed of the dismantling of the center.
“If this is confirmed, public safety is threatened and science is attacked,” said the governor. “Climate change is a reality.”
According to Antonio Busalacchi, president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), a scientific consortium that manages NCAR, “any plan to dismantle NCAR would compromise our nation’s ability to predict, prepare for, and respond to extreme weather events and other natural disasters.”
Since his return to the White House in January, climate skeptic Donald Trump has not missed an opportunity to mock climate science.
Climate change is the “biggest scam ever waged against the world,” he said in September at the UN General Assembly.
Several government websites containing weather and climate data have been taken down since he took office. And the weather forecasting, climate analysis and ocean conservation agency NOAA has suffered serious budget cuts.
