You don’t know what you got
Until it’s gone
And I found out
A little too late

I am a huge fan of the rock band Chicago, and these lyrics from their 1984 Grammy Award nominated song “Hard Habit to Break” have been going through my mind a lot in recent weeks with regard to everything going on with science in this country. It is my belief that the scientific infrastructure that underpins our society has become so ubiquitous we take it nearly for granted. Scientific data – and the federal infrastructure that is primarily responsible for collecting it, analyzing it, and applying it for societal benefit – is so integrated into our society and our day to day life that we don’t even think about it. And I am fearful that the commonplace nature of science is going to result in our losing it – just like the song says.

This belief was greatly reinforced this week by the release of a poll conducted by the Association of Science and Technology Centers (ASTC) and reported by NPR. The poll found that more than 90% of Americans weekly use data based on federal science such as weather forecasts, job market reports, food safety warnings, etc. However, only 10% of the same poll respondents are concerned that cuts to federal support for science might negatively affect their access to this information. This disconnect may seem surprising, but it was not to me, and it was not to Erica Kimmerling, one of the ASTC’s senior advisors involved in conducting the poll.

“I think there is a gap between what people use and their understanding of where that information comes from.” She says that gap isn’t particularly surprising because everyday information that is based on federal data, such as weather forecasts, “doesn’t have a label that says ‘brought to you by the federal government’.” (emphasis added by me)

My experience as a federal scientist is almost completely in the realm of weather forecasts and data, which probably nearly every American uses on an almost daily basis. I have had the opportunity to do quite a bit of international work in my career, and based on that I can say that the United States has a unique public-private sector partnership for the provision of weather services. Most people in this country receive their weather forecasts and warnings from a private sector source, whether it’s from a broadcast meteorologist on television, from a cell phone app from a private company like The Weather Channel or AccuWeather, or the ubiquitous icons on our computers like the one I can see in the left hand corner of my screen right now (67F and Partly Sunny). But here’s the kicker: none of that information would be available without the extensive federal scientific infrastructure that underpins it, primarily NOAA but also other agencies including the Department of Defense, FAA, etc.

In most of the rest of the world, the public has a much more direct reliance upon their national meteorological service. Most national government meteorological services have their own phone apps that people use to get weather forecasts, observations and warnings, e.g., Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, etc. all have governmental weather apps for their citizens. In many nations, government meteorologists do television forecasts for their national broadcast networks.

The United States, on the other hand, relies on a public-private partnership in which the government collects meteorological and hydrologic information, produces analyses, and provides basic forecasts and warnings to the public. The private meteorology sector provides “value-added” services to the public and private sector entities above and beyond the governmental services. The private sector also serves as the primary conduit for the public to receive weather information as NOAA’s policy precludes the NWS from “competing” with any service the private meteorology sector provides. This is very different than the rest of the world in which most national meteorological services are often some sort of quasi-governmental entity that does compete with the private sector and charges private entities (and in some cases, the public) for specialized forecast and data services. For example, in 2022-23, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology had an annual operating budget of A$420.6M, A$335.2M of which was government appropriation, and A$85.4M of which came from the sales of services.

Going deeper into the weeds of the pros and cons of the US meteorological public-private partnership is beyond the scope of this post, but I think it is important to establish that what the US has is unique, and has the net result of the private sector being the “face” of meteorology while the public sector is more of a behind the scenes operation. My own life experience shows this; when I tell people I’m a meteorologist, 95% of the time the next question is “what TV station do you work at?” The problem, though, is that the federal “behind the scenes operation” where I worked and where my colleagues labor in relative obscurity is foundational to the entire structure of our national weather enterprise, and without it the whole thing will collapse. There have obviously been many media stories in the last two months about potential (and actual) cuts to NOAA funding and staffing, and I cannot tell you the number of public comments I have seen on these stories along the lines of “Why do I need NOAA (or the National Weather Service) when I have <The Weather Channel, AccuWeather, local TV meteorologist, my app, Reed Timmer, etc>?” This is, of course, a totally fallacious perspective. Almost 100% of the data those private entities rely upon to do their work – Doppler radars, surface weather observations, numerical weather prediction models, satellite data, weather balloon data, hazardous weather warnings (and more) – are collected and/or produced by federal scientists and technicians, using federally owned and maintained equipment, and relying upon federally funded and produced research to improve the needed instrumentation and science.

A lot of focus right now in the media and in my own recent writing about this topic has been focused on the potential impacts of the proposed massive budget cuts to NOAA going forward and how those can be mitigated. The unfortunate reality is that massive damage has already been done. As an example, just today the probationary employees that NOAA terminated in a very haphazard and disrespectful manner (in my opinion) received a follow-up letter from the Department of Commerce. You can read the whole letter at this LinkedIn post from my colleague Andy Hazelton, but it boils down to this: we (DOC) were ordered by a judge to tell you that your termination was not performance based but rather part of a government-wide termination; we completely disagree with this order and intend to fight it tooth and nail, but because we were told to say it to you, we’re saying it with this letter – but hopefully we’ll win and get to come back and tell you nevermind.

As a 20 year supervisor in NOAA, I am appalled that the agency I worked for is treating employees like this. I know within NOAA Research we had probationary employees who left good jobs, and in some cases moved across the country, to come work for the federal government only to be terminated for no apparent reason, rehired because they were ordered to be by a federal judge, terminated (retroactively) again when a new court ruling arrived, and now are receiving this (to me) disrespectful letter. I think it is safe to say that for the entirety of my 35 year career, the federal government was seen as if not the most desirable, certainly one of the most desirable, places for scientists to work, with job stability, a supportive work environment and the knowledge that your work was benefitting society. That reputation has been completely destroyed in a matter of weeks by actions epitomized by the treatment of these terminated probationary employees.

Regardless of what happens going forward with budgets for entities like NOAA, this sort of damage is an irreparable harm, at least for the foreseeable future. The federal government will no longer be able to attract the type of talent that it needs to provide the level of service and information it has up until now. What is doubly concerning to me is that it seems clear that this is intentional damage, done with the idea of weakening the federal science infrastructure. While I have a hard time understanding the motivation for this, I cannot come up with another rationale for the actions and behavior I am seeing from the leadership of the federal agencies. To be honest, it also is consistent with the statements of the current head of OMB who is documented to have said of federal employees:

We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work, because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down … We want to put them in trauma.

Given what current and recently terminated federal employees are dealing with to try to meet their mission, of which today’s letter is but one example, it is hard to believe this sentiment is not the motivation for much of it.

I wish I could end this on a more upbeat note, but I think the poll we started off with showing that only 10% of the public is concerned about losing access to federal science data shows the crisis we are facing. The damage to the federal science infrastructure is already extensive, and much more is looming. While I am focused on the atmospheric sciences, that is but one small part of the cuts to science happening across the federal government. However, even that small atmospheric sciences part of the federal science apparatus provides huge benefits to society. A 2019 study found that the NWS provides about $73 in value for each dollar expended on the agency; a 2022 study found that the improvements made to the hurricane forecasting system based on NOAA research activities since 2009 had resulted in $7 billion in societal benefit just during the 2017-2020 hurricane seasons.

NOAA provides tangible benefits to society that far outweigh the costs of their budget, and is part of a federal science organization that encompasses so many other crucial agencies across a variety of scientific areas: medicine, space, environment, agriculture, food safety, engineering – the list goes on. How much of it will be gone before we start to realize what we are losing?