Recipients of a U.S. Climate Science Fellowship Are Put on Unpaid Leave
Every year since 1991, the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration has offered competitive grants to a small number of scientists. The awards, under the Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, have supported more than 230 researchers, many of whom have gone on to be leaders in global climate and atmospheric research.
'It would be a real shame for this program to go,' said Lilian Dove, an oceanographer at Brown University and one of the fellowship recipients who received the furlough notice on Monday. 'They do a great job of funding basic science that improves our understanding of how the world works.'
After the selection process for new fellows was finished this year, no one received offers because the funding situation at NOAA was too uncertain. The Trump administration's proposed budget cuts all funding for NOAA's climate research. And the latest funding for researchers already in the program has yet to appear. Ten researchers were placed on unpaid leave on Monday, effective through the end of September.
'It's frustrating,' Dr. Dove said. The funding delay and furlough have interrupted the final months of her research on how the Southern Ocean stores heat and carbon, a critical part of the global climate cycle. Many of the fellows collaborate with researchers in other fields and around the world, so when their work is delayed, their teammates are left to keep making progress alone.
Other fellows in the program study a range of climate topics including wildfires and air pollution, extreme precipitation and flooding, climate change at the poles, sea level rise and more.
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