Heather Welch’s work once involved safeguarding marine life by preventing ship collisions with whales off the U.S. West Coast. However, she was abruptly dismissed via an email that gave her only 90 minutes to pack her belongings and leave.
Welch, an ecologist who had served nearly a decade at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), specialized in tracking marine animal movements. Her work was essential for guiding shipping routes and helping fisheries optimize their catches while minimizing harm to sea life like turtles and sea lions.
Welch is just one of over 1,000 NOAA employees who have lost their jobs in recent weeks due to sweeping layoffs at the country’s leading weather and climate agency. Some workers have since received emails stating that they are being reinstated due to a judge’s order and are now on administrative leave. However, their work remains stalled.
Even before President Donald Trump’s budget cuts, NOAA was understaffed, and now the agency faces even greater shortages. The team Welch was part of, which provided critical climate data to fisheries, was significantly affected. “Much of the work will have to be scaled back, if not stopped entirely,” Welch told CNN.
NOAA’s responsibilities are vast, but its ocean observation efforts are among the most crucial. Several scientists warned that the layoffs come at a dangerous time, as the world’s oceans undergo dramatic and poorly understood changes. These shifts have significant consequences for marine ecosystems, human populations, and the global economy.
In 2023 and 2024, global ocean temperatures broke heat records for an unprecedented 450 consecutive days. This extreme warming fueled stronger hurricanes, accelerated sea-level rise, devastated coral reefs, and led to mass marine life die-offs. Meanwhile, a key system of ocean currents is showing signs of instability, raising concerns about a potential collapse that could trigger drastic weather changes across the Northern Hemisphere.
The role NOAA plays in ocean science cannot be overstated. “If you’ve been to the ocean or experienced weather, NOAA has impacted you in some way,” said Tom Di Liberto, a climate scientist and former NOAA public affairs specialist who was also laid off in February.
NOAA’s extensive ocean monitoring system—consisting of satellites, research vessels, and robotic buoys—supplies real-time data for weather forecasts and ocean predictions. This information not only helps anticipate waves and tides but also supports long-term projections for critical issues such as reservoir water levels, snowpack, and hurricane activity.
The agency’s data, freely available to the public, is widely used by industries. With fewer experts available, the quality of these widely relied-upon services could deteriorate.
NOAA’s research also feeds into climate models that help scientists answer pressing questions, such as how much sea levels will rise over the next 50 years, how weather patterns will change, and what shifts will occur in agricultural production. “Scattershot” firings have now “created holes all over NOAA,” said Sarah Cooley, the former head of the agency’s ocean acidification program, warning that the risks could be severe.
The White House defended the layoffs, stating that “an extensive process was conducted to ensure that mission-critical functions to fulfill NOAA’s statutory responsibilities weren’t compromised.”
However, many experts worry that losing NOAA personnel could impact human safety. Warmer oceans lead to stronger storms, and without accurate predictions of storm intensity and landfall locations, more people could be at risk.
Another concern is the growing frequency of vibrio blooms—dangerous bacteria in seawater that can cause severe infections through cuts or contaminated shellfish. Without NOAA’s ability to track conditions that lead to these outbreaks, coastal populations and seafood consumers face higher health risks.
“What we’re talking about here is a wholesale decrease in NOAA’s ability to support communities,” Cooley emphasized.
Another major issue is the potential impact on NOAA’s ability to track and analyze El Niño and La Niña events. These natural climate cycles, which originate in the Pacific Ocean, significantly influence global weather patterns.
Other nations, such as Japan and Peru, also monitor these patterns, but the U.S. has long played a leading role in predicting them. NOAA’s forecasts “can literally move global markets,” Di Liberto said. He fears the layoffs will weaken international efforts to determine how climate change is affecting El Niño and La Niña, a question with profound implications for seasonal weather conditions worldwide.
NOAA’s work is also vital for the fishing industry. The United States boasts some of the most well-managed fisheries in the world, largely due to NOAA’s guidance. The agency provides data that helps the fishing industry optimize harvests while ensuring long-term sustainability.
The full consequences of the mass layoffs are not yet clear, but experts warn the first major test could come with an extreme weather event, such as a hurricane. “When you stress a system during extremes, that’s when things can break,” Di Liberto said.
One certainty, however, is that climate change-driven disasters affecting oceans and U.S. coastlines will only increase in the coming years.
A longer-term consequence of the layoffs is the loss of young scientists early in their careers. Allison Cluett, a research physical scientist at NOAA, was part of a team studying Pacific Ocean changes to assist fisheries in making informed long-term decisions. She described the layoffs as “heartbreaking,” saying, “The next generation of federal workers was just erased.”
The dismissal of young ocean scientists is a particularly damaging blow, given the growing economic opportunities tied to the ocean economy—including seafood, shipping, and renewable energy. Douglas McCauley, a professor of ocean science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, pointed out that many of these scientists could have taken lucrative private-sector jobs but instead chose NOAA because of their passion for marine research.
“By treating these scientists as if they are deadbeats, we risk losing them forever,” McCauley said. He warned that this could significantly hinder the U.S.’s ability to capitalize on the multitrillion-dollar ocean economy and maintain its status as a global leader in ocean research.
Meanwhile, other countries may take advantage of the U.S.’s weakened position in marine science. China, for example, is ramping up investments in ocean research. “Data is power, and that’s the same in the ocean as it is in any other domain,” McCauley said. “With these cuts and this downsizing, we’re ceding that power.”