06-03-2025
Pacific Tsunami Warning Center Among Vital Agencies Hit by Tide of NOAA Layoffs
On February 27 upwards of 800 staff at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) were axed by the slash-and-burn operation known as the Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE).
"These terminations are consequential, and we will see an immediate impact on NOAA's ability to deliver critical services to American individuals, corporations and communities," Rick Spinrad, former NOAA Administrator and Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmospheres, recently told Newsweek.
NOAA management won't reveal precisely how many jobs have been cut. While many of those employees were within a probationary period, meaning they had held the positions for less than one year. Others? Well they were some of the nation's top experts at the National Weather Service (NWS), National Marine Fisheries Services (NMFS), and at-sea operations collecting critical data.
SCRIPPS Professor of Marine Biology Brice Semmens, explained to KPBS the amount of functions at stake due to the immediate termination of four data-collecting cruising vessels that contribute to 'predicting weather, both day to day, and when the big ones come, like hurricanes and tornadoes. They help us to understand how many fish we can pull from the ocean—and continue to do that both productively and sustainably.'Semmens is also Director of the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI), where he works directly with NOAA staff to gather data about fisheries, ocean chemistry, and pollution.
Semmens' colleague, oceanographer Clarissa Anderson, elaborated: 'All of the sea-going staff on the NOAA side, that keep these four month-long cruises a year going, were terminated.'
These effects of these terminations go far beyond ocean research that may or may not interest you based on your various financial, political, environmental, and/or philosophical interests. They collect weather and ocean-current data that are useful to, among countless other entities, the United States Coast Guard and their ability to enact swift and exacting search and rescue operations. 'Without them, you really would not have weather service models that work, one, and if you fall in the ocean, you are going to be found 40% later than you would have if we didn't have these data, because the Coast Guard requires these data in their models to tune them to make them accurate.'
So, should you require plucking from the sea on a surf excursion gone sideways going forward, you may want to affix a hefty (but trusty) EPIRB (emergency position-indicating radio beacon) to your stick. Yeah, try hucking fins with that gear in tow.
Up the coast in Oregon, the four NWS offices across the state saw up to 60% of its staff cut, Oregon climatologist Larry O'Neill toldthe Oregonian. Several of those personnel cut, O'Neill added, specialized in extreme weather events, as well as forecasting and managing drought and flood the country on the East Coast, NOAA cuts hit Narragansett Bay and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution—the world's largest independent, nonprofit oceanic research and higher-education facilities—where dozens of jobs were also cut last week, according toAtlantic Public Media.
And in our collective, hallowed ground zero,Hawaii News Now reported that a position at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center on Ford Island was terminated. Kayla Besong, who sent tsunami warnings from the Center, told Hawaii News Now, 'We cover all US island territories. If we are fully staffed, there's only 12 people and were need two people on for 24/7 watch at all times.'
Are Musk and co. just getting started fiddling with NOAA, our safety, and our surf reports? He—and probably only he—can tell. Cow-a-freaking-bunga.
