The effort to shrink the size of the U.S. federal government has resulted in a direct hit on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, operated by billionaire Elon Musk, is making cuts to NOAA, with even more staff reductions on the way.
More than 1,300 employees have already resigned or have been laid off, and as many as 1,000 layoffs are still expected.
Retired Environment Canada meteorologist Gary Lines said these job losses at NOAA could have a ripple effect felt north of the border.
“As we all know, weather is global,” said Lines. “Across North America, we have other services in Canada and the United States.” According to Lines, forecasting and measuring weather represents a strategic and combined effort between the two countries.
In a statement, Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) said it “has a longstanding relationship with the United States’ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in operational weather, climate, satellites, and water monitoring activities.”
“But any loss of data, is a loss,” said Lines, who added staffing cuts to NOAA’s scientific and highly trained workers could limit forecasting capabilities and have a negative impact on predicting the intensity of storms and when they make landfall, as hurricane season approaches.
“Any reduction in that, is going to have an impact not only in the US, in Canada and global weather modeling,” said Lines.
Nova Scotia-based commercial and residential developer Evan Price plans a lot of his construction activities around the accuracy of forecasting models. If there’s a gap in meteorological and climate data provided by NOAA, Price has concerns about where that information will come from in the future.
“For medium term planning there are documents that are layered to each other, that pull from statistics and create reliabilities,” said Price. “Certainly, if the United States is not carrying up their end, then we are going to figure out some of the place to compile that data in the future.”
