Trump administration ends ocean monitoring system that tracked temperature and flooding

The National Science Foundation announced plans to scale back a major ocean-monitoring network that scientists have relied on for more than a decade to track greenhouse gases, ocean temperatures, marine heat waves, and coastal flooding.

The move will gradually dismantle large portions of the Ocean Observatories Initiative, a $368 million system of deep-ocean sensors and research infrastructure deployed across several regions of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Among the sites affected is the Irminger Sea, located between Greenland and Iceland in the North Atlantic, which has provided researchers with continuous measurements of ocean and atmospheric conditions since it was established roughly a decade ago.

, the agency’s “descoping plan includes the phased recovery and removal of in-water infrastructure from the Endurance, Pioneer, Irminger Sea, and Station Papa Arrays over the next approximately 15 months.”

The process is already underway at the Endurance Array off the Pacific Northwest coast, where final recovery