The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is one of the foremost federal science agencies whose foundational work has wide implications and immense value for people’s daily lives and for our economy.
As an economist who is part of an interdisciplinary team focused on understanding climate impacts and advocating for smart solutions, I can tell you that NOAA science and data is crucial for our work at UCS. To give a few examples, we’ve used NOAA sea level rise data to analyze and quantify the impacts of flooding on coastal real estate and critical infrastructure. We use NWS weather alerts for our Danger Season mapping tool. The reality is that climate change now touches almost every aspect of our lives and economy and having robust scientific information gives us the power to confront these challenges effectively.
NOAA also provides critical, widely relied-upon forecasts for hurricanes and marine conditions, monitors wildfire smoke, and contributes to essential global scientific endeavors to help us understand and respond to changes on our planet.
That’s why the Trump administration’s nominee to lead NOAA must live up to a high standard for scientific integrity and make a commitment to safeguard the mission of the agency and the work of its dedicated career staff. When the nominee is announced, here’s what we’ll be looking for and why.
NOAA administrator must support NOAA’s crucial scientific work
The most important priority for the incoming NOAA administrator is to show is that they understand the breadth and importance of NOAA’s scientific work for our nation and commit to fully supporting that work and fostering an environment where agency scientific experts can do this work without political interference.
It should go without saying, but given the incoming administration’s track record with inappropriate agency nominees, it’s worth stating explicitly: the NOAA administrator should not have conflicts of interest or be beholden to fossil fuel and other special interests.
As my colleague Juan Declet-Barreto wrote in a recent blog post “We need a strong and independent NOAA.”
Here are some of the key responsibilities for the job:
Familiarity with the core missions and functions of the agency’s six branches—NOAA Marine & Aviation Operations (OMAO), NOAA Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Ocean Service (NOS), Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR), National Weather Service (NWS), and the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS)—and how their work is closely coordinated and integrated.
Commitment to uphold and enforce NOAA’s strong scientific integrity policy. This policy helps ensure that the scientists at NOAA do the highest quality scientific work free from harassment and interference, and that the public can rely on and trust NOAA science for that reason.
Commitment to safeguard NOAA and its work from attacks such as those proposed in Project 2025 that seek to dismantle the agency, privatize core components of its work, and politicize the science it produces. To be clear, NOAA’s line offices work together closely, and dismantling the agency would make it far less effective and, in some cases, unable to provide the services the public needs. Privatizing parts of NOAA such as the National Weather Service makes no sense—and even private companies like AccuWeather have said so. NOAA’s comprehensive and freely available weather and climate information is vital for the public and already being used by private sector entities like TV and radio forecasters and meteorologists. This life-saving information must be freely accessible to all so that everyone can use it and rely on having it, not just those who are able to pay.
Commitment to advocate for the resources, budget and staffing NOAA needs to do its work well. NOAA’s budget is a very small part of the overall federal budget, and it provides incredible bang for the buck. There will be inevitable attacks on its budget as we saw under the previous Trump administration, and it will be crucial for the NOAA administrator to clearly articulate what NOAA delivers for taxpayers and why it is worth investing in. Draconian cuts will save very little money but can completely hobble the agency’s work. The Secretary of Commerce also plays a vital role in advocating for NOAA’s crucial work which falls within the Commerce Department’s purview and budget.
Commitment to continue to invest in the tools, data and practices that will keep NOAA’s work at the cutting edge of science, including investing in satellites and earth observation systems, AI weather forecasting tools, integrating community knowledge and science, collaborating with scientific agencies around the world (for example, key data sharing and harmonization agreements), and building public-private partnerships.
Commitment to protecting marine fisheries, mammals, and ecosystems that are crucial to livelihoods, food security, commerce, planetary health and more.
What does NOAA do?
NOAA gathers, maintains, analyzes and provides for free an enormous amount of data, scientific information and tools that help us understand climate and weather conditions wherever we live. It also monitors ocean conditions crucial for maritime traffic and fisheries and helps with marine conservation efforts.
To gather this data, it has a powerful array of satellites as well as the much-admired hurricane hunters who fly into the most hazardous weather to improve predictions. These kinds of data are literally lifesaving when extreme weather events like heatwaves and hurricanes threaten, and it’s also incredibly important for our economic prosperity.
Here are just some of the powerful examples of NOAA’s valuable work:
NOAA’s National Hurricane Center provides seasonal hurricane forecasts and crucial information all through the hurricane season as tropical depressions form and progress. Just in this last year, the accurate and constantly updated forecasts for catastrophic hurricanes Beryl, Helene and Milton, among others, helped save lives and provided emergency responders with the information they needed to protect people and infrastructure. NOAA has also invested in creating and updating numerous related tools like its storm surge and wind speed products.
NOAA collects global and localized sea level rise data from tide gauges and satellite altimetry which are analyzed and made available through its sea level rise portal. These data help communities around the nation understand the accelerating rate of sea level rise—largely due to climate change—and the frequency and magnitude of high-tide flooding they can expect as a result. This information is crucial for local planners, infrastructure owners, operators and engineers, homeowners, businesses, and many others.
NOAA monitors wildfire smoke conditions and maps how those hazards travel hundreds of miles away from the original site of the wildfires. The latest science shows that particulate matter pollution from wildfires is a serious health hazard for people who may need to work or be outdoors, especially for young children, pregnant women and their babies in utero, and people with pre-existing heart or lung ailments.
NOAA’s marine forecast products are a bedrock source of information for the maritime industry. These products are available in multiple formats and routinely used by the crew of seagoing vessels to navigate and prepare for conditions at sea.
NOAA is working with the NSF to help the insurance industry better understand and prepare for the impacts of climate change on their businesses. This work could not be more salient as the industry is facing an acute upheaval as extreme weather and climate disasters multiply, and consumers are facing the brunt of raised insurance rates and dropped policies.
NOAA makes invaluable scientific contributions to global initiatives like the Famine Early Warning System, the Joint Typhoon Early Warning Center and the World Meteorological Organization.
The federal government’s data.gov portal links to more than 100,000 datasets generated or provided by NOAA. Having this kind of information is not just vital to understand the scope of the problems our nation faces but it helps policymakers develop effective policies and solutions so communities across the nation can thrive in the face of a warming world.
UCS will be advocating for a new NOAA administrator who can live up to the task the nation needs them to perform so we can all be safer and prosper.