The U.S. National Science Foundation announced Thursday that it has halted plans to dismantle the Ocean Observatories Initiative, a 25-year effort to monitor ocean conditions in key locations off the coast of North America.
The project, which began in 2016 and includes more than 900 scientific instruments suspended at various depths and locations in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, cost $368 million to install and roughly $48 million a year to operate. Scientists have been using data generated by the project to study vital large-scale dynamics of the Earth, including global climate change, coastal flooding and the operation of what’s called the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, a massive system of ocean currents that affects the climate on both sides of the Atlantic.
The NSF said in May that it planned to end the project early and remove all instruments from the ocean, a process that has already begun and was expected to take more than a year to complete. A spokesperson said at the time that — get ready for it — the decision aligns with a “wider strategy to have a nimbler approach to prioritizing support for evolving scientific priorities and emerging technologies as well as a deliberate approach to smart life cycle management within its portfolio of research infrastructure.”
The announcement came soon after President Trump fired all 22 members of the National Science Board, which sets policy and priorities for the NSF. The White House gave no explanation for the firing, but according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: “The apparent rationale for dismissing the entire National Science Board is the triple-threat of issues that irritate the president and are the focus of many of his executive orders — namely, climate science, vaccine policy, and diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.”
Critics push back: Scientists criticized the NSF’s decision to end the project, and some lawmakers have said they oppose the move. On Wednesday, the Senate passed a measure that would preserve the monitoring system, though it’s not clear how the legislation would fare in the House.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the Alaska Republican who co-sponsored the measure along with Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley, noted that the monitoring system is helping scientists understand El Niño, the powerful climate pattern currently affecting the Pacific Ocean.
“This is all happening at a time when everybody’s talking about El Niño and what that is going to bring in terms of the potential for extreme weather events,” Murkowski said. “This is not the time to be turning off one of our most valuable scientific assets.”
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, the senior Democrat on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, said she was pleased that the administration reversed course.
“This pathetic scheme was illegal,” Lofgren said in a statement Thursday. “My oversight team and I will be following closely what NSF does next. NSF’s next steps must be nothing short of replacing any of the instruments that have already been removed and ceasing all activities to de-scale until legitimate expert advice has been sought.”
NSF retreats: In a statement, the NSF said it “appreciates the concerns raised by the range of stakeholders that have informed us they rely on data from the Ocean Observatories Initiative. Effective immediately, NSF will not proceed with further removal or descoping of equipment from the remaining arrays and will continue operations including planned maintenance.”
Noting that some scientific instruments had already been removed from the ocean, the agency said it is “developing plans to redeploy the equipment after servicing.”