Re: The Proposed Dismantling of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)

Published: Dec 19, 2025

Dear Colleagues,

The United States Research Software Engineer Association (US-RSE) is voicing our profound concern regarding the recent announcement regarding the intent to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The article published by USA Today¹ on Dec 16th, discusses the announcement to break up NCAR, but it fails to convey the extensive, cross‑disciplinary repercussions such a move would entail for the scientific and research software community in the United States and more broadly².

Since its founding in 1960, NCAR has provided a central role in climate and weather science, as the nation’s premier hub for atmospheric and Earth‑system research. Its facilities—including the Mesa Laboratory, a fleet of research aircraft, and a world‑class supercomputing center in Wyoming—provide resources that no single university could sustain on its own. The center’s work underpins:

• Severe‑weather warning systems that save lives and property by delivering timely forecasts of hurricanes, wildfires, and floods.
• Advances in radar and satellite data assimilation, which improve short‑term weather predictions and long‑range climate projections.
• Community models³ such as the Community Earth System Model (CESM) and Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, freely distributed to researchers worldwide.

These contributions are already recognized as essential infrastructure for the broader scientific enterprise.

Furthermore, NCAR’s software and datasets have become integral to many fields outside traditional meteorology. This includes being on the forefront of developing and utilizing supercomputers for scientific research. NCAR has provided insights into effective economics and policy, use and understanding of hydrology and water resources, renewable energies, and even public health. The breadth of these applications demonstrates that NCAR is not merely an “atmospheric” or “climate” laboratory; it is a foundational platform for interdisciplinary research that fuels innovation across the entire U.S. scientific ecosystem.

Many from our community build, maintain, and extend the very software stacks that NCAR develops and releases. The loss of NCAR would:

• Eliminate a major source of high‑performance scientific code (e.g., the NCAR GeoCAT, data‑assimilation libraries) that many depend upon .
• Disrupt collaborative pipelines that link university groups, national labs, and industry partners through shared model repositories.
• Reduce opportunities for training the next generation of research software engineers, who currently gain hands-on experience with NCAR’s open‑source tools and supercomputing resources.

In short, dismantling NCAR would create a critical gap in the research software infrastructure that underpins reproducible, scalable science.

Some Calls to Action:

To mitigate this threat and preserve NCAR’s invaluable assets, we propose the following coordinated actions:

1. Reach out to your elected representatives. Tell your representatives that you do not support the dismantling of such an important institution within our country. AGU provides an automated system to send emails and the phone numbers to reach your representatives. https://agu.quorum.us/campaign/151565/
2. Share your concerns on social media. Many have already posted on various platforms over their concerns over this news. Consider using hashtags such as #NCAR #SupportNCAR #SaveNCAR #SaveScience
3. Share your stories using NCAR-related data, models, or resources If you have worked with NCAR-related resources, please share your story with Leadership. We hope to coordinate with our NCAR affiliates to share these stories. Furthermore, you can share your stories with AGU, who are collecting stories from the community around federal policy impacts on your research throughout the year. https://agu.quorum.us/campaign/150385/

The proposed dismantling of NCAR threatens not only a cornerstone of climate science but also the entire research software engineering fabric that enables interdisciplinary discovery in the United States. As members of US-RSE, we have both the expertise and the responsibility to advocate for the preservation of this vital national asset.

We stand ready to collaborate on the actions outlined above and welcome any additional ideas from the community. Together, we can help ensure that NCAR continues to empower scientists, engineers, and policymakers for generations to come.

Respectfully, United States Research Software Engineer Association – Steering Committee and Executive Director

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