The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration began firing staff on Thursday, continuing a wave of government-wide layoffs ordered by the Trump administration. The terminations, which include staff at the National Weather Service, could impact weather forecasting used by many people and industries across the U.S. economy.
It wasn't immediately clear how many people were fired from NOAA. Neither the agency nor the Department of Commerce, which oversees NOAA, responded to messages seeking comment. NPR has confirmed the firings at NOAA through multiple sources who asked for anonymity for fear of retribution.
Some fired employees were given less than two hours to leave the office, according to a source with direct knowledge who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal. They said staff that manages NOAA's central weather forecasting models scrambled in that timeframe to transfer access to employees who remain at NOAA.
The agency joins many others across the federal government to have their workforce cut in recent days. The move is part of the Trump administration's efforts to reduce the size of the federal government. Thousands of scientists, doctors, administrative employees, grant managers, and more have been affected in the mass firings.
NPR has seen several copies of a termination letter for NOAA employees, all of whom were in a "probationary" period with the agency; the status is applied because they had either joined NOAA recently or been promoted. The letters informed the employees that they were "not fit for continued employment because your ability, knowledge and/or skills do not fit the Agency's current needs."
Impact of cuts to NOAA staff
The impacts of the cuts at NOAA, say experts and agency employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal by the Trump administration, could be profound. The agency has around 12,000 employees that work on a broad range of topics, from conditions in the upper atmosphere to fish in the depths of the ocean.
NOAA monitors and forecasts the country's weather and hurricanes, manages oceanic fisheries, protects coastal resources and creates and updates maritime maps critical to global shipping. TV meteorologists rely on NOAA data for local forecasting, as does the weather report many Americans read on their phones. Disruptions in NOAA's employee base could, among other outcomes, result in less accurate weather forecasts, experts warn, or delays in updating maritime maps key to safe passage within the U.S.'s oceanic waters.
"Breaking up, defunding, or reducing NOAA's highly integrated workforce will severely impact our nation's economy," five of NOAA's former administrators said in an open letter to Congress and the American public. "It will also make it more difficult to receive weather forecasts, be assured of the safety of seafood, and ensure the timely delivery of purchases from overseas, which are delivered primarily through our nation's ports."
Timothy Gallaudet, a former Navy officer and oceanographer who served as acting administrator of NOAA during the first Trump administration, warned that weakening NOAA could "have national security and economic impacts that are really seemingly contradicting the administration's priorities now." The risks include disruptions to weather operations, marine shipping safety, and military activities.
NOAA also houses and supports cutting-edge climate science research. NPR reported previously that several of Trump's January executive orders focused on cutting or slashing climate programs specifically. NOAA officials received a list of terms related to those executive orders and were instructed to review related grants and programs for potential cuts.
"We all earned our positions," says one former employee who worked in fisheries policy within the National Marine Fisheries Service, one of NOAA's offices. They asked to speak anonymously out of fear of retribution from the Trump administration. "It's so disheartening. And it's really reducing the intellectual and regulatory capabilities of the agency."
Another NOAA employee, who asked not to be named because of concerns about jeopardizing future employment opportunities, fretted that the move could stunt the agency's work for years to come. "It's an absolute gutting of young talent," they say.
How could this affect NOAA operations?
NOAA's most widely known offices include the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center. NWS produces weather forecasts and relies on a vast network of data collected from locations across the country. That data is fed into the models that create the weather forecasts, which are used daily by millions of Americans, as well as a vast number of industries, including shipping and aviation. Those weather models need active care and monitoring by scientists.
Even a small reduction in the amount or quality of data coming in for the weather models can impact weather prediction accuracy. For example, some small percentage of weather observations are provided by commercial aircraft; during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when flight activity dropped precipitously, some scientists teased out a decrease in weather model accuracy (though others found a smaller impact).
NOAA scientists also monitor global climate patterns that have major impacts on the U.S., like the seasonal El Niño and La Niña, which can determine whether parts of the country see droughts or floods. The agency's long-running rainfall records are used by engineers around the country, who are required to design roads, bridges and other infrastructure to withstand flooding.
The agency also operates the Office of Marine and Aviation Operations, which manages a fleet of scientific and survey ships, along with highly specialized research airplanes. Those ships and planes provide key data for climate, weather, fisheries, underwater mapping, and more.
An employee at NOAA, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution, said such cuts would have a direct impact on the capabilities of the office to carry out its crucial coastal mapping duties. Those include planned, upcoming projects like creating new ocean floor maps in the Arctic, where climate change is causing sea ice to retreat and opening up new areas for global maritime travel that are poorly charted.
The U.S. currently boasts some of the most sustainable oceanic fisheries in the world, says Janet Coit, who led NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service, or NOAA Fisheries, under the Biden administration. The office's ability to refine that management could suffer, she says. Cuts, Coit says, could "hollow the ability of NOAA Fisheries. It raises the question, she says: "How do you support the growth of our seafood sector while simultaneously eviscerating the agency that's responsible for sustainable management and many other aspects of supporting our seafood sector?"
It will take years to understand the full scope of the impacts of such staff cuts, says Rick Spinrad, NOAA administrator during the Biden administration. NOAA is currently one of the premier science agencies in the world, he says, and historically, leaders have been "able to pick and choose the best and the brightest." But "if you lose the intellectual capital, it's going to take decades to get that back," Spinrad says.
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