{"id":479600,"date":"2026-06-06T16:51:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T16:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/479600\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T16:51:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T16:51:11","slug":"scientists-warn-trump-plan-to-axe-us-ocean-monitoring-system-will-leave-world-flying-blind-us-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/479600\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists warn Trump plan to axe US ocean monitoring system will leave world \u2018flying blind\u2019 | US news"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Trump administration\u2019s plan<\/a> to dismantle an ocean observation system vital to understanding the climate crisis and marine ecosystems would \u201cseverely degrade\u201d the accuracy of weather predictions and El Ni\u00f1o forecasts, with economic consequences for the US, European and American scientists have warned.<\/p>\n

Decommissioning the US system, which plays a major part in a global ocean observation network, would lead to a massive increase in error in the annual estimates of ocean heating rates, according to research published last month<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As a result, the forecasts and early warning systems for storms, tropical cyclones and El Ni\u00f1o would degrade, \u201csometimes dangerously so\u201d, according to Sabrina Speich, an expert in global ocean monitoring at the Ecole Normale Sup\u00e9rieure (ENS) in Paris and chair of the ocean expert panel of the Global Climate Observing System.<\/p>\n

The Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), run by the US National Science Foundation, is a vast network of seafloor systems, underwater gliders and moored surface platforms that feeds data to researchers, policymakers, educators and mariners worldwide. The initiative, which covers both US coastlines and extends into the North Atlantic and Southern Ocean, has been used to study marine heatwaves, harmful algal blooms, subduction zone earthquakes, ocean acidification and fisheries variability.<\/p>\n

Dismantling it would remove a major component of the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), a network of robotic floats, moored buoys and research vessels experts describe as the \u201ceyes and ears\u201d of the ocean. The warning systems based on the data, \u201csave lives\u201d, experts say.<\/p>\n

Prescient research published in Nature Climate Change<\/a> last month showed how data losses in GOOS, a UN-coordinated framework for ocean data for weather and climate collected by several countries, could degrade the ocean heat estimates that underpin weather prediction, El Ni\u00f1o forecasting and fisheries management. Losing US observations would be worse than randomly losing 80% of all ocean data worldwide, it found. US-funded platforms span every ocean basin, plugging critical gaps that no other nation currently fills.<\/p>\n

Speich, a co-author of the research, said: \u201cOcean heat content is the most robust indicator of climate change we have \u2013 not just of what is happening in the ocean, but of the entire climate system\u201d. Vertical temperature profiles that provide ocean heat content, are \u201camongst the simplest measurements we can make\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLose them, and you lose your ability to track not just ocean warming but the climate system as a whole \u2013 they are a proxy for variables that become unavailable the moment the observations stop.<\/p>\n

\u201cForecasts would continue \u2013 but they would degrade, sometimes dangerously so. Atmospheric observations alone are not sufficient\u201d said Speich. \u201cOcean data [is] fundamental to early warning systems for tropical storms, cyclones and El Ni\u00f1o. And the consequences would not stop at science: the economic costs would be felt within the United States itself, from agriculture to insurance to disaster response.\u201d<\/p>\n

The loss of US observations, in a year predicted to be an El Ni\u00f1o year<\/a>, with \u201csupercharged\u201d weather extremes, could also \u201close the ability to see it coming clearly to act in time\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe stakes are concrete: farmers in the US and across South America use El Ni\u00f1o forecasts to decide what to plant and when \u2013 whether to expect drought or flooding shapes every agricultural decision months in advance.\u201d<\/p>\n

The most recent El Ni\u00f1o, which hit in 2023-2024, was one of the five strongest on record and contributed to 2024\u2019s record-breaking increase in global temperature.<\/p>\n

Removing US observations alone would produce a 163% increase in error for annual ocean heating rates, the research by Speich and her co-authors found.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, the European Union said it would boost its own monitoring of the world\u2019s oceans<\/a> by investing in a \u20ac92m ($107m) initiative called OceanEye, more than half of which will go to GOOS. The announcement, by the European Commission, was long-planned, not a direct response to the US move.<\/p>\n

John P Abraham, professor of engineering at the University of St Thomas, in Minnesota, and co-author of the research paper, described the US administration\u2019s move to dismantle the $368m OOI system as \u201cpenny-wise, pound foolish\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe US government wants to save less than a billion in sensors, which are the eyes and ears of the ocean\u201d said Abraham. \u201cWe have hundreds of billions in climate costs per year. The cost of the observation system is a fraction of the climate costs from hurricanes and storms that hit the US. \u201d<\/p>\n

The US suffered more than 400 climate and weather disasters<\/a> where damages exceeded or reached $1bn, between 1980 and 2024<\/a>. In 2024 alone, the costs of such disasters amounted to $177bn. This \u201cbillion dollar climate and weather product\u201d, managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) will no longer be updated due to \u201cevolving priorities\u201d, according to a note on its website.<\/p>\n

The system, is, Abraham said is \u201cquite an inexpensive way to reduce climate-related costs\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not about saving money, this is about killing climate science research,\u201d Abraham said.<\/p>\n

Samantha Burgess, the strategic climate lead at the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), the European Union\u2019s Earth observation system which integrates European space data with in-situ measurements to monitor changes and provide forecasts, said ocean observations are \u201cirreplaceable\u201d because \u201cwe can\u2019t see the deep ocean from space.\u201d They \u201csave lives\u201d by warning us of severe storms, she said.<\/p>\n

Burgess said: \u201cWe need international cooperation to get the best available observations to mitigate risks in our changing world. Without ocean observations we are flying blind.\u201d<\/p>\n

A statement earlier this week by the National Science Foundation, which funds and oversees the OOI, said the program was not being cancelled entirely and described the plans as a \u201cdescope\u201d, or reduction of elements, though it was not clear what data collection capacity would be left.<\/p>\n

This article was amended on 5 June 2026 to correct instances of misspelling of the surname of John P Abraham.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Trump administration\u2019s plan to dismantle an ocean observation system vital to understanding the climate crisis and marine…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479601,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[242,85,46,141],"class_list":["post-479600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}