Meteorologists and members of the Japan Meteorological Agency monitor weather activity on a computer screen at the NOAA Center for Weather and Climate Prediction headquarters in College Park, Maryland in December 2024. NOAA has been plunged into turmoil as the Trump administration attempts to reshape the federal bureaucracy.
Photographer: Michael A. McCoy/Bloomberg‘It’s a Circus’: Trump Unleashes Chaos at Key US Science Agency
Muddled directives and early-morning emails at NOAA, one of the world’s top weather and climate forecasters, have put the agency on edge.
The email arrived in US government workers’ inboxes just after 1 a.m. East Coast time on Friday, with the subject line “IMPORTANT CLARIFICATION - URGENT ACTION.”
The message went to some staff members at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, the scientific agency best known for providing daily weather forecasts through its National Weather Service. It capped a tumultuous 36-hour period during which the future of the organization’s international collaborations hung in limbo.
