Trump Administration to Dismantle Ocean Monitoring System

[dalton99a]

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/01/climate/ocean-observatories-initiative.html

Trump Administration to Dismantle Ocean Monitoring System
The $368 million network of instruments collecting data in both the Atlantic and Pacific has been critical to climate and ocean research.
By Eric Niiler
June 1, 2026, 6:19 p.m. ET

The Trump administration is dismantling a $368 million deep-ocean observation system that was put in place a decade ago to monitor coastal environments, marine ecosystems and powerful currents that affect the global climate.

The National Science Foundation said it would send ships in June to begin removing more than 900 deep-sea instruments anchored off Oregon, Washington State, Alaska, North Carolina, and an area between Greenland and Iceland known as the Irminger Sea.

Scientists have used data from the system to understand how the ocean is absorbing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, how changes in ocean temperature such as marine heat waves might affect fisheries or signal bigger shifts in the climate, and coastal flooding along the East Coast.

The station in the Irminger Sea has been key to understanding changes in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current, a global conveyor belt of water that some scientists are concerned may be weakening as a result of climate warming. A collapse of the current could have severe weather effects.

It cost $48 million annually to operate the network. The Trump administration repeatedly tried to shutter it, proposing to cut its funding by 80 percent in both 2025 and again in 2026. Congress pushed back, restoring the money.

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[superpatriotman]

1. Someone call the Avengers

I’m sick of this destroyer.

Also call Malaise.

[Ocelot II]

2. If you don't monitor it, it's not happening, right?

[dalton99a]

4. +1

[Mad_Machine76]

18. This immediately came to mind too!

After all, if you just hide reality, it just stops existing.....

[wnylib]

6. Just like not doing covid tests.

[BadgerKid]

13. More like delete facts/discovery that harms GOP/MAGA views. Nt

[Solly Mack]

3. If you erase the data or stop the data then a fact no longer exists, I guess. Problem solved. Snort.

Then there is - where is the money going now? Whose pockets?

[Buzz cook]

5. That 48M could be going to Donnie's pocket.

It's just like a hostile take over. Get control, strip the assets, and walk away from the wreck..

[wnylib]

8. Or hide out in a bunker.

[Emile]

7. This kind of crap only promotes more stupidity.

Here in the midwest I been seeing more and more yard signs. No Wind Mills, No Solar Farms, stupid signs.

[VMA131Marine]

23. I can sort of understand why people might not want to live close to a wind farm

There’s the aesthetic issue and they do make noise. That said, they don’t put wind turbines in developed areas and farmers who lease out space for wind farms generate significant passive income from the installation. Enough that it might be the difference between the farm making a profit or loss.

I do not understand the objection to solar farms. They are completely silent, don’t impact the skyline and they make electricity from freaking sunlight. Their energy payback time is much shorter than their lifespan. Parking lot solar has additional benefits to the point that parking lots over a certain size should probably be mandated to have solar canopies because parking lot area is completely unproductive.

[yellow dahlia]

9. The science that we are capable of is like a precious treasure.

There is a return on investment that is immeasurable.

It is like throwing a priceless work of art into the dumpster. And with it throwing out years of investment. There will be a building of infrastructure that will be lost, and will have to be replicated when we repair this government.

I am so sick of the destruction!!!

[ThoughtCriminal]

10. They want to make sure the damage is permanent

It's not enough to steal everything in site and destroy the rest. The want to salt the Earth and make us pay for it.

[AZJonnie]

11. It's the Crybaby COVID Corollary making another round

You remember? "Less people would have COVID if you just stopped testing so many people for COVID!!!1!"

Same evil, stupid bullshit.

OUR elected representatives, the rightful and Constitutional arbiters of the investment of our tax dollars, created the system, and OUR taxes paid for all this gear and the setup. Now a nutjob, grifting POTUS wants to destroy our investment, so he can protect his cronies and contributors in the fossil fuel industry from liability and loss of profits that might flow from the government monitoring the impact of their climate-destroying product!?!

F*** THIS SHIT!!! Who will be the first to sue to stop this?

[eppur_se_muova]

12. That information is also very useful to the Navy, and that was probably used to justify the cost in the first place.

The Navy does NOT like to talk about why all that data is useful necessarily; they'd rather not let our rivals know what we are capable of, or give them clues about how they could screw things up. Perhaps some Uglican(s) on the Armed Services Committees could have some private conversations w/Trmp.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

14. Why???

[hatrack]

17. Because it owns Libtards. That's it. That's all it is, and all it ever was.

It pisses off smart people who know something about how the world works.

That's why.

[Wild blueberry]

15. Our to-do list just got longer

Way past fury. Ready to roll up my sleeves.

[Botany]

16. "collecting data in both the Atlantic and Pacific has been critical to climate and ocean research."

‘nuff said.

Trump knows his days are numbered and he is not bothered that the world he leaves
behind has a climate that drowns New Orleans, causes the blue whale to go extinct,
and a multitude of other nightmare scenarios. Trump promised the fossil fuel industries
that if they gave him a billion dollars and worked for his election he would shut down climate
science.

[timms139]

19. Democrats when back in control

should let the important things Trump has destroyed linger long enough for Texas and Florida red hats suffer a couple times because of the lack of info to warn them .

[rickford66]

20. Maybe some billionaire will pony up and save it ..... Nah. Better to have a ballroom.

[hatrack]

21. And lots and lots of penis rockets, and Met Gala sponsorships!!!

[LetMyPeopleVote]

22. The "war on knowledge itself" is true and under-appreciated

. @jamellebouie.net's point about the "war on knowledge itself" is true and under-appreciated

It’s one thing for an administration to discard evidence; it’s something else when it embraces willful ignorance and deliberately denies itself access to information it needs but doesn’t want. For example:

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2026-06-02T11:08:01.440Z