As Hurricane Season Approaches, Trump’s NOAA Budget Cuts Threaten Safety
Why is this significant, and what areas of research will be affected?
When President Richard Nixon established NOAA in 1970, the agency’s goal was to increase the nation’s understanding of the environment, including land, water, and air. Trump’s cuts will directly undermine those goals: They will leave the nation with a reduced understanding of environmental changes, diminished ability to issue early warnings and prepare for natural disasters, and reduced knowledge of our oceans.
Consider weather forecasts. NOAA’s National Weather Service is recognized as one of the premier meteorological services in the world. It deploys satellites, radars, airplanes, and ocean buoys to detect weather patterns and changes to the climate. The information collected supports the creation of timely weather forecasts and alerts for the public. Those forecasts provide an estimated $31.5 billion [PDF] in annual benefits.
NOAA’s forecasts affect practically every aspect of Americans’ lives.
· Forecasts tell people whether to take an umbrella, find immediate shelter, or evacuate their homes.
· NOAA’s predictions inform choices for businesses such as commercial shippers worried about impending storms and utilities concerned about space weather activity that can crash the grid.
· Federal agencies, such as the Departments of Defense and Transportation, use NOAA’s research and weather predictions to inform planning and operational decisions.
· The agriculture and fishing industries rely on NOAA’s forecasts to inform planting, harvesting, and fish stock management decisions, while schools use NOAA forecasts to determine whether to close in inclement weather.
Cuts to NOAA’s staff—including experienced meteorologists and those collecting data—reduce the granularity of forecasts, making them less accurate. Degraded forecasts warnings could result in greater damage and loss of life. The Global Commission on Adaptation estimates that a twenty-four-hour warning of an impending storm can reduce damage by 30 percent [PDF].
But it’s not just forecasts that NOAA produces. NOAA also tracks and analyzes major climate patterns such as the El Niño–Southern Oscillation and Pacific Decadal Oscillation—both of which influence weather variability. It provides projections of sea-level rise that inform planning and risk management for the roughly 30 percent of the U.S. population living near a coast. NOAA also runs models to analyze how atmospheric pollution is changing the climate; it has developed a range of interactive tools to help visualize climate data and trends.
How could this affect foreign countries and the coordination of emergency preparedness efforts?
Impacts from budget and staff cuts to NOAA extend beyond U.S. borders. They will disrupt the data collection fundamental to climate research and modeling as well as degrade international forecasting and climate assessment capabilities.
Climate research modeling. NOAA, in partnership with research laboratories and universities, supports climate research that informs international understanding of climate science. For example, media reports have indicated that DOGE proposed terminating hundreds of federal leases, including the NOAA office in Hilo, Hawaii, which manages NOAA’s observatory at the Mauna Loa volcano. That facility provides the world’s longest continuous record of the accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere, information that is foundational to international climate science and future temperature projections, and a vital record for climate science. The office closure and staff cuts could threaten the continuity of the observatory’s climate data collection.
Global weather forecasting. Meteorologists and researchers worldwide use NOAA’s data and modeling to support their understanding of weather and climate change. For example, the Indian meteorological service uses NOAA’s climate models and satellite data for its weather predictions. Already, the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts has reported a 10 percent drop in data from U.S. weather balloons used to measure global temperature, humidity, and wind.
Other countries may eventually fill the gaps created by the Trump administration’s cuts. Indeed, many nations, including China, have made no secret of their desire to poach American scientists. But disrupted international collaborations with NOAA scientists could slow scientific progress and cause the United States to lose influence in international environmental governance.
How will this affect the insurance industry?
NOAA’s climate data and forecasting can help reduce damage. In the absence of quality climate data and information, communities may choose to continue to develop in areas vulnerable to climate change or in ways that lead to increased damage when disaster strikes. Those choices, in turn, will cause insurers to raise premiums or reduce availability of insurance.
Consider NOAA’s publication of information regarding economic loss from natural disasters. For close to forty-five years, the federal government has tracked every weather-related disaster that has caused over $1 billion or more in destruction. The database compiles information from a variety of sources to track the toll of disasters such as hurricanes, floods, and wildfires.
In the 1980s, those events occurred every three or four months; now, those hits come an average of every three weeks. In 2024, there were twenty-seven separate billion-dollar weather and climate disasters costing 568 lives and more than $182 billion in damage.
Insurers value the database because it aggregates losses and communicates the changing risk picture to the public and government officials. But the Trump administration has stopped publication of such information.
Are there alternative research firms that could fill the vacuum for climate and weather forecasting? What benefits or pitfalls are there to those groups?
There are alternative weather services available for a fee. They provide hyper-local, tailored forecasts and industry foresights by applying proprietary models and advanced analytics to public data. The foundation of their products remains NOAA’s high-quality, comprehensive observational data. Indeed, open access to NOAA data has spawned an arms race among private companies to build value-added products and services.
Private weather services do not have the resources or infrastructure to replicate NOAA’s extensive global data collection network of 18 satellites, 1,300 maritime buoys, planes, balloons, radar, and observation stations. As a government agency, NOAA’s data, monitoring tools, and information provide historical context for current environmental conditions. They are foundational for understanding the pace, scale, and consequences of climate change on the United States and across the globe. The private sector can enhance, interpret, and customize NOAA’s data, but they cannot replicate it.
NOAA’s forecasting and climate information should remain a public good. It is considered the “gold standard” [PDF] for open access to weather data. NOAA’s work is core to public safety. It supplies information with the goal of safeguarding everyone—not just those who can pay for it.
Alice C. Hill is David M. Rubenstein Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment at CFR. This article is published courtesy of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).This work represents the views and opinions solely of the author. The Council on Foreign Relations is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher, and takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.
