{"id":693908,"date":"2026-06-09T17:32:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T17:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/693908\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T17:32:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T17:32:12","slug":"alaskans-reel-from-the-loss-of-national-science-foundation-ocean-monitoring-instruments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/693908\/","title":{"rendered":"Alaskans Reel From the Loss of National Science Foundation Ocean-Monitoring Instruments"},"content":{"rendered":"

The upcoming loss of a deep-ocean monitoring system is triggering deep anxiety in Alaska, the nation\u2019s top fish-producing<\/a> state, where temperatures are warming twice as quickly<\/a> as the global average.<\/p>\n

The National Science Foundation announced<\/a> plans in May to decommission the Ocean Observatories Initiative<\/a>, a nearly $368 million network of scientific instruments that tracks ocean chemistry, wave action, water temperature, salinity and a host of other metrics.<\/p>\n

The real-time information from these ocean observatories helps scientists, fishery managers, coastal hazard planners and even the military<\/a> plan and prepare for the future. Whether that\u2019s calculating how much fish can be harvested or when a marine heatwave or giant wave action may be occurring, the data is used by a plethora of sources.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt helps us see where we\u2019re going and what\u2019s coming at us,\u201d said Jan Newton, University of Washington affiliate professor of biological oceanography.<\/p>\n

The NSF\u2019s decision to pull the observatories from the water has alarm bells ringing in fishing circles of Alaska, home to a $5.3 billion commercial seafood industry that employs nearly 42,000 people, according to a recent report<\/a> that McKinley Research Group prepared for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute.<\/p>\n

Michelle Stratton, executive director of the Alaska Marine Community Coalition<\/a>, said the loss of Ocean Station Papa<\/a>, the deep-ocean observing system situated in the Gulf of Alaska at a depth of nearly 14,000 feet, means the state will lose one of its only systems that documents how the ocean is changing in real time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in the middle of salmon crashes, crab collapses and repeated marine heatwaves, and this decision takes away the data we rely on to understand what\u2019s happening and how to manage these fisheries,\u201d Stratton said.<\/p>\n

As for why NSF is pulling the scientific hardware, spokesperson Cassandra Eichner said the decision \u201caligns with the NSF\u2019s wider strategy of a nimbler approach to prioritize support for evolving scientific priorities and emerging technologies, as well as smart lifecycle management within its research infrastructure portfolio.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MichelleMichelle Stratton, fisheries scientist and executive director of Alaska Marine Community Coalition, moves gear to fishing grounds off Kodiak Island. Credit: Hannah Heimbuch<\/p>\n

All previously collected data will remain accessible and the NSF remains committed to ocean science, Eichner said.<\/p>\n

But critics say the decision to take down the ocean observatory network, which consists of some 900 deep-sea instruments distributed across the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, aligns with Project 2025<\/a>, a conservative blueprint for governing prepared by the Heritage Foundation and, to some extent, enacted by the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

Project 2025 cast government-sponsored oceanic and atmospheric research as a regular source of \u201cclimate alarmism,\u201d particularly within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its various agencies.<\/p>\n

The oceans are one of the most unexplored, unmeasured and, ultimately, poorly understood regions of Earth, said Rick Thoman, climate specialist with the University of Alaska Fairbanks, who spent 30 years at the National Weather Service.<\/p>\n

What the Ocean Observatories Initiative does, Thoman said, is to shed light on what\u2019s happening in the deep, dark depths of the underwater world, not just at the surface.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This story is funded by readers like you.<\/p>\n

Our nonprofit newsroom provides award-winning climate coverage free of charge and advertising. We rely on donations from readers like you to keep going. Please donate now to support our work.<\/p>\n

Donate Now<\/a> <\/p>\n

\u201cLosing the information provided by Ocean Station Papa on how the ocean is changing with a warming climate is like driving down a dark freeway with no lights on,\u201d said Carol Janzen, oceanographer with the Alaska Ocean Observing System.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Since Alaska has suffered intensive marine heatwaves<\/a> in recent years, along with population crashes of species like Chinook salmon and snow crab, the last thing managers and scientists want to see is the loss of deep-ocean monitoring data, Thoman said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe value of this network is that you get oceanographic information from the entire water column,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Fast-warming Alaska has been battered by intense storms of late, including Typhoon Halong, which largely destroyed the Western Alaska villages of Kipnuk and Kwigillingok last October. The mostly Yupik villages were home to more than 1,000 people, many of whom evacuated to Anchorage and are still living there while decisions are made about what to do next: rebuild or move to higher ground.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The state is also preparing for El Ni\u00f1o conditions<\/a> later this summer.<\/p>\n

Ocean Station Papa\u2019s sensors and other instruments help weather forecasters and emergency response officials know ahead of time when super-storms like Halong are about to come barreling through.<\/p>\n

\"AnAn Ocean Station Papa buoy floats in the waters of the Gulf of Alaska. Credit: NOAA<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re looking at ocean temperatures, salinity, current, wave height and direction, wind stress,\u201d Stratton said. \u201cThose all feed into models that NOAA and universities use to tell us how storm systems intensify, how water levels along the coast are rising or falling, where and when we should expect the next big flooding event.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The loss of Ocean Station Papa could make Alaska\u2019s isolated, largely Indigenous coastal villages even more vulnerable.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re seeing diseases directly linked to food security, income, intergenerational knowledge, community stability. So we\u2019re not looking at just the biological crisis. It\u2019s economic. It\u2019s cultural. It\u2019s a way of life, too,\u201d Stratton added.<\/p>\n

For longtime fisheries advocate Tim Bristol, executive director of the nonprofit SalmonState, pulling monitoring instruments out of the ocean seems counterintuitive.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo matter where you are on a particular issue, you hear a desire, a call for more information, better data, more in-depth analysis, and this seems to be, you know, a sprint in the wrong direction,\u201d Bristol said.<\/p>\n

Thoman, the weather and climate specialist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, said that may be true. But even if the United States, a longtime leader in the sciences, wants to bury its head in the sand about a changing ocean and warming temperatures, that doesn\u2019t mean the information will go away.<\/p>\n

Other nations will step in to fill the data void created by the loss of the Ocean Observatories Initiative, he believes, as their locations in international waters provide valuable data for numerous countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know the Chinese could come and plunk down a buoy there tomorrow if they\u2019re inclined,\u201d Thoman said. \u201cIf anyone thinks that the U.S., by stopping doing this, is going to stop the monitoring or stop our understanding of this, they are woefully mistaken. All of these things are international efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tAbout This Story<\/p>\n

Perhaps you noticed: This story, like all the news we publish, is free to read. That\u2019s because Inside Climate News is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. We do not charge a subscription fee, lock our news behind a paywall, or clutter our website with ads. We make our news on climate and the environment freely available to you and anyone who wants it.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not all. We also share our news for free with scores of other media organizations around the country. Many of them can\u2019t afford to do environmental journalism of their own. We\u2019ve built bureaus from coast to coast to report local stories, collaborate with local newsrooms and co-publish articles so that this vital work is shared as widely as possible.<\/p>\n

Two of us launched ICN in 2007. Six years later we earned a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, and now we run the oldest and largest dedicated climate newsroom in the nation. We tell the story in all its complexity. We hold polluters accountable. We expose environmental injustice. We debunk misinformation. We scrutinize solutions and inspire action.<\/p>\n

Donations from readers like you fund every aspect of what we do. If you don\u2019t already, will you support our ongoing work, our reporting on the biggest crisis facing our planet, and help us reach even more readers in more places? <\/p>\n

Please take a moment to make a tax-deductible donation. Every one of them makes a difference.<\/p>\n

Thank you,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The upcoming loss of a deep-ocean monitoring system is triggering deep anxiety in Alaska, the nation\u2019s top fish-producing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":693909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[3292,300834,192,11499,21258,8477,6202,300835,9458,79,2986],"class_list":["post-693908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-alaska","tag-alaska-marine-community-coalition","tag-environment","tag-national-oceanic-and-atmospheric-administration","tag-national-science-foundation","tag-noaa","tag-ocean","tag-ocean-observatories-initiative","tag-oceans","tag-science","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}