The Trump administration’s decision to dismantle most of a $386 million federal ocean-observing network will leave scientists without an irreplaceable source of data used to understand how climate change is affecting crucial currents and marine ecosystems and increasing coastal flooding.
“No other system has the comprehensiveness,” said Craig McLean, the former acting chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and now a senior fellow at the Ocean Foundation. Other monitoring networks provide valuable information but represent only “bits and pieces,” he said, of what is collectively measured.
The network of sensors, moorings and autonomous instruments known as the Ocean Observatories Initiative will be stripped of almost all in-water infrastructure, according to plans announced in late May by the National Science Foundation. Federal officials will send boats to remove the equipment placed in most the Atlantic and Pacific installations.
The system entered operation in 2016 and was designed to provide continuous observations for at least 25 years. Researchers have used the data it provided to study the oceans’ role in absorbing heat and carbon dioxide, among other topics.
An array off Oregon that monitors seafloor geology, volcanic and seismic conditions will continue operating through 2028, the NSF said, as will the initiative’s central data center. Researchers will retain access to data already collected.
In a statement, NSF said the decision reflects a “a nimbler approach to prioritize support for evolving scientific priorities and emerging technologies, as well as smart lifecycle management within its research infrastructure portfolio.” The statement cited a 2025 National Academies report that recommended a review of the observation network to align it with evolving needs.
The move follows a multi-pronged attack by the Trump administration on climate-related research and programs, as well as previous efforts to reduce funding for the initiative. The NSF’s fiscal 2026 budget request proposed an 80% cut, which Congress rejected.
As opposed to taking intermittent samples, OOI continuously monitors the same locations using a wide range of sensors. Scientists say this allows them to distinguish short-term fluctuations from longer-term environmental change.
OOI sensors in the Irminger Sea, between Greenland and Iceland, help to track the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation — a huge conveyor belt of warm, shallower currents to the north and cold, deeper currents to the south. The current is weakening, and it could collapse in coming decades, rather than coming centuries, some scientists now think.
Experts say there’s no alternative that can fully replace the network. The Argo float network, supported by dozens of nations, the UK-led RAPID array and observatories operated by Canada, Europe and Japan also collect ocean data, but those and other systems are generally viewed as complementary to rather than interchangeable with OOI.
“There are some major ocean-observing programs led by other oceanographic institutes,” said Penny Holliday, chief scientific officer at the UK’s National Oceanography Centre. But data from the US network has been “critical in the context of understanding the ocean, how it is changing and how those changes affect people and the planet.”
OOI provides a unique level of detail, according to Chris Robbins, associate director of scientific initiatives at the Ocean Conservancy.
“Argo is somewhat analogous to taking someone’s vitals, in that it provides a snapshot of one’s health,” he said. “OOI provides a deeper level of diagnosis that would be gained through imaging and blood panels.”
What makes the network so valuable to researchers is its combination of fixed-location observations and its ability to simultaneously measure biological, chemical, physical and geological processes from the surface down to the seafloor. But once observations at a site are interrupted, the resulting gaps in the record cannot be recreated.
Robbins questioned why the government is retiring infrastructure that remains operational.
Walking away from such a large investment “in a state-of-the-art system, a feat of engineering already paid for by the American people, is absolutely myopic,” he said.
The consequences will be far-reaching, said McLean.
“We will be disassembling the components that produce results tomorrow,” he said. “It’s a whole lot easier to just worry about what’s going on today, rather than what you’re looking at long term.”
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