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US climate cuts hurting global science: Europe's weather agency

Europe's meteorological agency says cuts by US President Donald Trump's administration to a key American science agency had hindered the sharing of crucial observations used around the globe to monitor the climate and forecast weather.

Trump's administration has fired hundreds of staff at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and deleted government websites with data on the weather and climate.

The White House plans to go much further, US media reported last week, by gutting funding for NOAA's climate-related research programs and firing even more scientists who study global warming.

Florence Rabier, Director General of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), told journalists that the repercussions were being keenly felt across the Atlantic and beyond.

"We've been partners with them since our beginning, 50 years ago, and they provide a huge contribution to the science of weather prediction and so the climate science," Rabier said in remarks on April 10 that were embargoed until Tuesday.

"What we've seen since March is that there has been a drop in the number of observations delivered by NOAA due to funding cuts," she said.

Data provided from weather balloons, which track temperature, wind speed, humidity and other atmospheric readings, had reduced by about 10%, she added.

These observations were "absolutely fundamental" for forecasts globally, Rabier said, "because the weather doesn't know any border."

"It's important for climate monitoring—any observation lost is a loss for climate monitoring, for calibration of satellite, for verification of forecasts," she said.

"In terms of both science, and observations for weather and climate, I think it would have an impact on the whole community."

NOAA is one of the world's premier climate monitors, making it a prime target as the Trump administration has downsized government agencies and gutted spending on conservation and environment.

Under plans reported by US media, about 75% of funding for NOAA's research branch could be eliminated from the 2026 budget—drastic cuts that could be implemented starting this year.

The administration also wants to make budget cuts to a branch of NASA that is tasked with using satellites to study and monitor the effects of climate change, media reported.

The ECMWF runs the Copernicus Climate Change Service, which uses billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations to aid its climate calculations.