Experts from around the world have flocked to the facility since it was established in 1960, giving it the feel of an "International Space Station for climate research," said Paul Kushner, an atmospheric physicist at the University of Toronto. The work conducted there has played an important role in better understanding the impacts of climate change in Canada and training climate experts currently working in the country, he said.
"On any given day, sitting at the lunch table, I'll ... realize that we are all from different countries," said Hornbrook.
The facility is also a key part of a network of universities across North America, giving experts at some of Canada's largest institutions access to its labs, supercomputers and aircraft. Environment and Climate Change Canada experts also collaborate with the lab, Kushner added.
"It is very much the infrastructure for the field as a whole," Kushner said. Closing it "will weaken atmospheric science as a whole [and] certainly will weaken Canadian science as collateral damage."
Trump cuts target climate and environment research
The announcement is the latest volley in the Trump administration's war on climate science. Only weeks after taking office, Trump officials ordered researchers with the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration, the US government agency in charge of weather forecasting, climate research and fisheries, to temporarily stop communicating with "foreign nationals," a move experts decried as a "body blow for climate research."
Sweeping cuts have curtailed the agency's international collaborations, data collection and research on climate and fisheries, and forced the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to end all support for studies into climate change, COVID and other pressing health topics. The administration has also cancelled or delayed thousands of federal research grants, on top of cutting funds to some universities and drastically limiting the overhead costs covered by the NIH.
In August, the administration asked NASA employees to draw up plans to end its Orbiting Carbon Observatory, a satellite-based project that measures where on the Earth's surface carbon dioxide is being emitted or absorbed. The data are detailed enough that researchers can pinpoint carbon dioxide emissions from a specific source, such as a power plant or wildfire, and track timing changes to the growing season. They are widely used by scientists, farmers and the fossil fuel industry.
Hundreds of Canadian climate experts have been caught in the bloodbath, losing huge amounts of funding and access to vital research facilities, equipment and collaborations. Kushner is now among them: About a third of his research program is based on computer models created at NCAR, he said.
Canada doesn't have the programs or funding to replace the facility, even with the government's announcement in the 2026 budget of plans to spend close to $1.4 billion over the next 13 years on research, Kushner said. The bulk of those funds are earmarked to recruit experts from other countries and build new research facilities in the country.
"It's really bad for science around the world that this is happening," he said. Canada needs to ensure that "we do our part to keep the whole thing going."'