The Trump administration’s proposed 2026 budget for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) cuts funding for several critically important national laboratories and observatories. On the chopping block is Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawai‘i, which has been recording atmospheric carbon data every day for nearly 70 years.
Mauna Loa Observatory sits atop a volcano on the Big Island of Hawai‘i. At an elevation of 3,397 meters (11,135 feet), it rises above more polluted air near the ground to collect atmospheric data with minimal influence from human activity and vegetation. Mauna Loa has been collecting atmospheric carbon dioxide data since 1958, the longest continuous record of atmospheric CO2 levels in the world.
Famously, the observatory provided data for the Keeling Curve, a graph that shows annual CO2 levels for the past seven decades.
The graph starts in 1958, when the observatory recorded atmospheric CO2 concentrations of 315 parts per million (ppm). By 2024, that number had steadily climbed to nearly 427 ppm. The last time Earth experienced that much CO2 was roughly 3 million years ago, when sea levels were more than 24 m (80 ft) higher than today.
NOAA operates three other observatories that collect CO2 data to create a global picture of atmospheric CO2 trends. All four observatories will be closed if President Trump’s budget is adopted.
In all, more than a dozen observatories, national labs and institutes are on the chopping block in the budget. The facilities monitor extreme weather events and air pollution, information that can help save lives, Rick Spinrad, former NOAA administrator, told Mongabay in an email.
Spinrad said he’s concerned about the proposed lab closures, including of Pacific Marine Environmental Lab in Seattle, “where tsunami sensors and predictive models are built.” He also mentioned the National Severe Storms Lab in Norman, Oklahoma, “where next generation radars are being designed, and where tornado research has helped lengthen the warning time for tornadoes.”
Another concern for Spinrad is the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Lab, which supplies the scientists who fly “hurricane hunter” aircraft into hurricanes to collect data to better track and forecast storms. Spinrad also pointed to the Air Resources Lab, where scientists model the concentration and trajectory of air pollutants.
Additionally, NOAA’s Global Monitoring Lab in Boulder, Colorado, which tracks atmospheric greenhouse gas levels, changes in aerosol levels and stratospheric ozone recovery, “is the preeminent ‘gold standard’ for analyzing and calibrating those measurements,” Spinrad said.
“The NOAA effort is really the backbone of the global effort to track greenhouse gases,” Ralph Keeling, a professor of climate science at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and son of Charles Keeling, who started the Mauna Loa CO2 curve, told The New York Times. “We need to do everything we can do make sure these stations don’t close,” he said.
Banner image of Mauna Loa Observatory, courtesy of NOAA.
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