Dismantling NCAR Would Weaken the Nation’s Weather and Climate Infrastructure

January 25, 2026:

CO-LABS is deeply concerned by the proposed dismantling of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), first announced December 17, 2025 and with the January 23, 2026 National Science Foundation's Dear Colleague Letter.

This discussion comes as weather and climate-related disasters impose increasing fiscal pressure on the federal government: over the past decade, the United States has averaged more than $150 billion per year in disaster losses, much of which is borne by federal response, recovery, and insurance programs.

In this context, any changes to national extreme weather forecasting and research capacity require extensive scrutiny.

NCAR functions as an integrator of federally funded weather and climate capability, linking observations, advanced modeling, high-performance computing, and workforce development into a coherent system. While the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) documents the rising number and cost of billion-dollar weather disasters, NCAR supplies the research and modeling infrastructure that enables better forecasts and risk information used to mitigate those losses.

NCAR-developed models such as the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model are foundational to forecasting improvements used by NOAA, the Department of Defense, FAA-supported aviation systems, and private weather firms, reducing duplication across agencies and sectors.

Proposals to divest NCAR research aircraft or transfer supercomputing resources risk increasing, not reducing, costs. The NSF NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center supports billions of compute hours annually for federally sponsored research, providing shared infrastructure that would be significantly more expensive to replicate across multiple agencies or institutions. Fragmentation could increase contracting, coordination, and oversight costs while slowing scientific progress.

Concerns that atmospheric or climate science has become “politicized” conflate scientific research with policy debate. NCAR’s work is governed by standard federal research safeguards: competitive grants, independent peer review, open data access, and international replication. Scientific results are evaluated across hundreds of independent journals and institutions worldwide, making coordinated bias implausible and reinforcing accountability to evidence rather than ideology.

NCAR also plays a critical workforce and readiness role. Each year, it trains and supports hundreds of early-career scientists and engineers, many of whom transition into federal agencies, defense applications, operational forecasting, and the private sector. Disrupting this pipeline would exacerbate existing shortages in highly specialized technical expertise that federal agencies already struggle to recruit and retain.

Congress has long treated weather and climate science as essential national infrastructure because of its high return on investment. Studies consistently show that every dollar invested in weather and climate research yields multiple dollars in avoided losses and improved decision-making. Congress has a clear interest in ensuring that federal research dollars produce measurable public benefit: NCAR does exactly that, delivering daily value through improved forecasts, risk reduction, and national preparedness. Reform should focus on strengthening this capability, not dismantling it.

At a time when weather and climate extremes are imposing billions of dollars in losses and increasing risks to lives and infrastructure, weakening NCAR would leave the nation less prepared, less competitive, and less secure.

Our network stands ready to work with policymakers, agency leaders, and stakeholders to strengthen - not weaken - taxpayer funded research that delivers critical science and innovation for the nation.

Signed,

Dan Powers

Executive Director

CO-LABS

Interested in submitting a respnse to the NSF’s letter? Deadline is March 13, 2026. See the letter concerning NCAR and commenting details HERE.

More reading: Walter Orr Roberts and NCAR: How Boulder built a global climate science hub, now under federal threat by Clif Harald in the Boulder Reporting Lab