Dismay as Trump officials to dismantle key ocean monitoring system
Summary
President Trump’s administration plans to end the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), a $368 million deep-sea monitoring system that has gathered important data on ocean health and climate for over a decade. The National Science Foundation will remove the ocean instruments and stop the data collection over the next 15 months.Key Facts
- The Ocean Observatories Initiative includes over 900 instruments studying ocean currents, climate changes, and marine life.
- The OOI was started in June 2016 and has provided continuous ocean data since then.
- The National Science Foundation announced the plan to dismantle the system on May 21, shortly after Trump fired the NSF’s independent board.
- All monitoring equipment will be removed from locations off the coasts of North Carolina, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and from the Irminger Sea near Greenland and Iceland.
- Scientists and Democratic lawmakers have criticized the decision, saying it will harm climate research and could increase costs in the long run.
- The system’s leader said the infrastructure removal will happen in phases and will end real-time ocean data from those areas.
- Some experts warn that rebuilding such a complex system in the future will be hard because the knowledgeable teams are also being disbanded.
- This move fits into a broader trend of the Trump administration reducing support for environmental and climate science programs.
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