Which NOAA research labs and programs were proposed for closure and what services do they support?
Executive summary
The administration’s FY2026 NOAA passback proposed eliminating the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR), shuttering NOAA’s 10 research laboratories and 16 cooperative institutes, and cutting core programs that underpin hurricane, severe-storm, climate and ocean forecasting [1] [2]. Those proposals single out specific facilities — including Boulder’s four labs, Miami’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory and Hurricane Research Division, the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Oklahoma, and long‑running observatories such as Mauna Loa — and would curtail services from greenhouse‑gas monitoring to hurricane‑hunter science [3] [4] [5] [2].
1. The headline targets: OAR, 10 labs and 16 cooperative institutes
The budget document explicitly eliminates funding for NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, saying the FY2026 plan “eliminates all funding for climate, weather, and ocean Laboratories and Cooperative Institutes,” a move that would dismantle a national network of 10 federal research labs and 16 university partnerships that collectively develop models, observations, and applied science for forecasting and climate monitoring [2] [1].
2. Boulder’s labs: four federal facilities and regional climate services
At NOAA’s David Skaggs Research Center in Boulder, the proposal would close the Chemical Sciences Laboratory, the Global Monitoring Laboratory, the Global Systems Laboratory and the Physical Sciences Laboratory — facilities that perform atmospheric chemistry research, long‑term greenhouse‑gas monitoring, systems development for modeling and observational platforms, and physical‑process science that feeds national forecasts and regional climate products [3] [6]. Those labs also support cooperative institutes (CIRES, CIRA) and student partnerships; their elimination would cut programs that produce daily climate data and trend analyses used by researchers, utilities and agriculture [3] [7].
3. Hurricane science: AOML, HRD, hurricane hunter support and flight hours
NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) in Miami and its Hurricane Research Division (HRD) were named among facilities slated for closure; these units have driven major advances in intensity forecasting and maintain models used by the National Hurricane Center, and they provide scientific teams that fly on and interpret data from NOAA’s hurricane‑hunter aircraft — work the budget would weaken by reducing flight hours and cutting associated engineering and science support [4].
4. Severe storms and flash‑flood tools: National Severe Storms Laboratory
The National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma — founded in the 1960s and responsible for much operational tornado and severe‑storm science — is listed for elimination under the passback, with remaining severe‑weather research confined to a handful of transfer projects; experts warn that tools such as improved flash‑flood guidance and radar‑based forecasting could lose their research engine [5] [8].
5. Long‑running observatories and greenhouse‑gas records: Mauna Loa and monitoring programs
Reporting highlights that key monitoring sites, including Hawai‘i’s Mauna Loa CO2 observatory — long‑standing evidence of atmospheric CO2 trends — would be affected by the “zero” climate research line in the budget, imperiling continuous records and the federal capacity to produce authoritative greenhouse‑gas time series [2] [9].
6. Services at risk: models, observations, aircraft, partnerships
Taken together, the proposed closures threaten operational services: the scientific upgrades to National Weather Service models, specialized observations (satellite and in situ), experiment support aboard hurricane hunters and research aircraft, regional climate data streams, and university cooperative research and training pipelines that supply the next generation of forecast scientists [1] [4] [3].
7. Administration rationale and political pushback
The administration frames the changes as consolidation — transferring some functions to the National Weather Service — and steep fiscal retrenchment rather than outright abandonment, but reporting shows substantial net eliminations of research capacity and staff; meanwhile, Congress and scientific groups have mobilized to block closures, with an Appropriations Committee amendment specifically directing NOAA to maintain labs and avoid closures [2] [10].
8. Limits of available reporting
Detailed lists of every single lab and program slated for closure beyond the repeatedly named facilities differ slightly across outlets and the internal NOAA passback; some reporting quantifies workforce and flight‑hour cuts while other pieces emphasize institutional impact without exhaustive line‑item lists, so the complete catalog of affected programs and exactly which observational platforms would cease is not fully enumerated in the sources provided [4] [11] [9].