Scientists appalled as Trump administration moves to dismantle key US ocean monitoring network

The administration of US President Donald Trump has begun winding down a major federally funded ocean monitoring network that scientists say has provided critical data on climate change, ocean circulation and marine ecosystems for more than a decade.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has initiated the removal of infrastructure associated with the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), a $368 million programme comprising more than 900 instruments deployed across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to monitor ocean conditions in real time.

According to a notice issued by the NSF on 21 May, the agency has started a process to "descope" the initiative by removing in-water infrastructure from observation sites off the coasts of North Carolina, Oregon, Washington and Alaska, as well as from the Irminger Sea between Greenland and Iceland.

The move comes days after the Trump administration dismissed members of the independent board overseeing the NSF and forms part of a broader rollback of scientific and climate-related programmes undertaken during the administration.

Scientists and Democratic lawmakers criticised the decision, warning that it could undermine long-term climate monitoring and ocean research.

Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen described the move as "shortsighted", arguing that it would ultimately increase costs for taxpayers. Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse accused the administration of weakening scientific monitoring at a time when oceans are experiencing rapid warming.

Phased shutdown planned

OOI Principal Investigator Jim Edson said the NSF plans a phased recovery of infrastructure over the next 15 months.

"As infrastructure is recovered from each array, the associated real-time data streams and observing capabilities at those locations will come to an end," Edson said.

The decision effectively brings to a close more than a decade of continuous ocean observations. The network became fully operational in June 2016 and has since generated extensive datasets used by researchers worldwide.

Edson said the initiative had delivered some of the world's most advanced continuously operating ocean observation capabilities and credited scientists, engineers, operators and partner institutions for sustaining the programme.

The OOI's instruments have been used to monitor ocean temperatures, currents, marine biodiversity, atmospheric conditions and deep-ocean processes, providing data critical to understanding climate variability and ecosystem changes.

Researchers say the programme's value lies not only in the data it produces but also in the sophisticated infrastructure that enables long-term monitoring in remote and often hostile ocean environments.

Concerns over loss of expertise and data

Hilary Palevsky, a marine biogeochemistry and oceanography professor at Boston College, said the programme allowed researchers who lacked the resources to deploy complex ocean instrumentation to access high-quality observational data.

She said the reliability and quality of the network's data had steadily improved over the years, enabling scientists to derive increasingly meaningful insights from long-term observations.

Palevsky warned that dismantling the programme could result in the loss of specialised expertise required to maintain and operate such systems, making any future effort to rebuild the network more difficult.

Researchers have used OOI data to study marine ecosystems, fisheries, carbon sequestration and deep-ocean circulation processes. The observations have also contributed to research on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a major system of Atlantic Ocean currents that scientists consider vital to regulating the global climate.

According to researchers, data collected in the Irminger Sea has improved understanding of deep-ocean convection processes that play a key role in the functioning of the AMOC.

Climate implications

Scientists say long-term observational records are particularly important as climate change intensifies extreme weather events and alters ocean systems.

Palevsky said reductions in climate and ocean observations would make it more difficult for societies to understand emerging environmental risks and plan adaptation strategies.

The dismantling of parts of the OOI follows other Trump administration policies affecting ocean management, including efforts to expand deep-sea mining and ease certain fishing regulations, developments that have drawn concern from sections of the scientific community.

The NSF, however, said the programme was not being cancelled entirely.

In a statement, NSF Head of Media Affairs Mike England said the decision to reduce the initiative's scope was consistent with the agency's broader strategy of prioritising emerging scientific priorities, new technologies and lifecycle management of research infrastructure.