US institutions such as NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which play a similar role to the Met Office, are having billions cut from their budget by the US President.
The i Paper has spoken to researchers based at universities across the UK who say they have been impacted by the loss of US collaborators and access to vital data sources.
The data, which has been published for over 15 years, was taken offline in March, with the US state department citing “budget constraints”.
“Those are our two long-standing observations of atmospheric CO2,” she said.
Professor Piers Forster, founding director of the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at the University of Leeds, said the impact of “Trump 2.0” on the international science community is “far more significant” than the US President’s first term.
“Colleagues I have previously worked with at US institutions have been given hours to clear their desks and leave… Whole labs, such as NASA GISS [Goddard Institute for Space Studies] and NOAA labs, appear to be under threat. They curate important data sets, such as the CO2 record at Mauna Loa, which gave the first hard evidence of climate change.”
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He said: “The data that has accumulated over that time is gold dust; 25 years of climate change in the atmosphere and the upper atmosphere. You just do not get that sort of time series, and what we see very much adds to the story of global environmental change that we’re experiencing.
Ryan Neely, professor of Observational Atmospheric Science at the University of Leeds, works on a project called ICECAPS, which is studying how the Greenland ice sheet is melting.
“There’s so much uncertainty that the National Science Foundation can’t make any decisions. They got kicked out of their office,” he said.
Dr Chris Reed works on the NCAS’ research aircraft that measures greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution.
“They don’t know month to month whether they’re still going to have a job. Building stuff for us is not the priority,” he said.“We also need to extend the contract with them to be able to do an extra bit of work, but there is a moratorium on any new agreements, contracts, or anything external with them.”
Professor Neely, who is originally from the US, said: “It’s like the house I grew up in is getting burned down.
Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, said Trump’s assault on climate science has had a “chilling effect”, with US researchers “finding it more difficult to engage in collaborative networks around climate”.
He also warned that it felt like the UK was moving “backwards” with Reform “embracing” Trump’s climate agenda and the Conservatives weakening their message on climate.
Rachel Cauley, communications director at the White House said: “President Trump ran on defunding woke, weaponised, and wasteful government and his budget proudly does that by cutting funding for the Green New Scam, projects like ‘gender-responsive agricultural adaptation’ in Guatemala and Mexico, and ‘Equity Climate and Health’ workshops for ‘transgender women, and those who identify as non-binary’.
“Under Trump’s leadership, the US is funding real science again.”
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