Four wind-powered, unmanned Saildrones could head toward the equator on a four-month mission as a developing Pacific El Niño threatens to become the biggest yet. NOAA has no specific El Niño research missions planned, while other projects wait on a budget decision.
The event is nearing its winter peak in November and December. Federal forecasters say it could far exceed any El Niño in recorded history and ultimately affect millions of people. NOAA hopes to spend $2 million to $5 million on research to improve observation and prediction, according to Annarita Mariotti of NOAA’s Climate Program Office. The government is operating under a continuing resolution through Dec. 11.
Research Capacity Under Pressure
NOAA’s current effort won’t match the planes, ships and aircraft deployed during the 2015-16 El Niño. The agency plans to send four Saildrones toward the equator to measure ocean temperatures and other data, but additional projects depend on Congress passing a budget. NOAA’s Office of Marine and Aviation Operations says it has no specific El Niño research missions planned.
The earlier campaign shows how much NOAA isn’t preparing now. In January 2016, NOAA released weather balloons twice a day on the Pacific island of Kiritimati, near the equator. A NOAA research ship launched balloons eight times per day during a month-long cruise, while a NOAA research plane made 22 flights across the Pacific, dropping parachute-equipped instruments into storms. NASA’s Global Hawk, an unmanned long-range aircraft originally slated for hurricane research, also flew in the Pacific. Researchers sent data to weather-forecast models in real time to improve U.S. winter storm predictions.
Randy Dole, who helped lead the campaign at NOAA’s Physical Sciences Laboratory and retired in 2016, said researchers must collect observations as an event unfolds. “You can do research after events are over for years or decades, but you have to get the observations during the event,” he said. “That was a critical consideration, and so we were going to do whatever we could, to the best of our ability, to get data that could be used both at that current time and in the future.”
Dole’s team began planning six months before field research. Chris Fairall, who worked on the project at NOAA and retired during the Biden administration, said coordinated field programs typically require five-year planning processes involving aircraft, research vessels, satellites and research plans.
Staff and Budget Cuts
Since Trump began his second term, NOAA has lost more than 2,000 staff, largely through retirements and firings. Data from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management show a roughly 20% staff loss. For the second year in a row, the Trump administration is seeking to eliminate NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, which studies climate patterns such as El Niño.
The administration’s budget proposal “eliminates all funding for climate, weather, and ocean laboratories and cooperative institutes” to focus “on NOAA’s public safety mission,” and would transfer some research to the National Weather Service. Congress’ budget deal preserved the office last year while transferring some of its budget to the National Weather Service. The administration is also seeking cuts to climate research across NOAA, including programs it described as those that “spread baseless environmental alarm.”
Earlier this year, the administration announced it would begin removing the Ocean Observatories Initiative, which provides sea-temperature data important during El Niño. The decision was reversed this summer after pushback from the scientific community. NOAA’s present research effort is still substantially smaller than in 2016.
Forecasts, Floods and Unanswered Questions
El Niño can bring destructive rainstorms and floods to some regions and severe droughts to others. In the 2015-16 event, California prepared for damaging rain and flooding that didn’t materialize; precipitation stayed below average there for most of the winter. South Carolina experienced catastrophic flooding.
Researchers say measurements taken during storms can improve forecasts. Marty Ralph, director of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, said satellite data lack the precision to show an atmospheric river’s strength, structure and water vapor. His project has partnered with NOAA to collect data using its “hurricane hunter” aircraft. He expects that work to continue this winter and said officials are considering the request for flight time “in a very tight budget environment.”
Ten weather and climate researchers who spoke with NPR described the developing El Niño as an important case study because parts of the pattern remain poorly understood. Daniel Swain, climate scientist with the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, called it “a big natural experiment,” while saying it’s likely to harm many people. He added, “I’m not super optimistic about anything happening quickly on the federal level these days.”
Researchers are studying how El Niño forms, how it transitions to La Niña, and whether climate change and emissions from burning fossil fuels are making the events more intense. Michael McPhaden, senior scientist at the University of Washington and a NOAA scientist until earlier this year, said, “Field data is irreplaceable.”