Scientists lose critical climate record as ocean observatory will go dark under Trump funding cuts

Published 2 June 2026 · science

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Add AP News as your preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Add AP News on Google Add AP News as your preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Share SEATTLE (AP) — A portion of one of the most ambitious ocean monitoring networks ever built will go dark this month when scientists board a research vessel and motor off the Oregon coast to pull a research buoy from deep out of the Pacific. The buoy 80 meters (260 feet) below the water’s surface will be removed June 16 from the Ocean Observatories Initiative — a network of more than 900 ocean sensors built at a cost of $386 million that has continuously collected real-time data for more than a decade. But last month, the Science Foundation announced it would dismantle most of the system, pulling instruments from waters off Oregon, Washington, Alaska, North Carolina and Greenland by 2027. Funded by the foundation, the observatories have tracked everything from ocean circulation and marine ecosystems to climate change and extreme weather. Its data has been freely available and has informed more than 500 scientific publications. The project was slated to run for another 15 to 20 years. In an emailed statement, the foundation said the decision is not a cancellation, but a “descoping” aligned with a “wider strategy of a nimbler approach to prioritize support for evolving scientific priorities and emerging technologies, as well as smart lifecycle management within its research infrastructure portfolio.” The foundation added that its decision drew in part on a 2025 Academies report on the future of ocean science.

But for the scientists who built and operated the system — and the researchers, educators and students who rely on its data — the timing feels particularly punishing. Read More An El Nino event, which disrupts weather patterns and supercharges marine heat waves, is predicted to arrive along the Pacific coast this summer. One marine heat wave is already pushing unusually warm water off California. Without the Oregon and Washington moorings and the network of underwater gliders the Ocean Observatories Initiative operated in the region, researchers say they’ll lose much of their ability to measure what’s happening below the surface, which is precisely where the most significant oceanographic signals are. “It’s a crippling loss of information,” Ed Dever, a professor at Oregon State University who helped lead the initiative’s Pacific Northwest operations, told The Associated Press Tuesday. Scientists can get some data from the surface, such as temperature and the distribution of chlorophyll, which drives photosynthesis in plants, but information below cannot be gathered from satellites alone, including low oxygen zones. In this 2021 image provided by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, workers walk near buoys used to gather data at Pioneer New England shelf off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. (Véronique LaCapra/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution via AP) In this 2021 image provided by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, workers walk near buoys used to gather data at Pioneer New England shelf off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.