"Experts say the cuts to the federal workforce and climate science funding could cause decades of loss in human knowledge and discovery."
"For the last 20 years, Bruce Appelgate has helped send America’s scientists out to sea.
From a port in San Diego, the academic maritime expert oversees more than a dozen federal and university research vessels across the country that embark on months-long voyages to answer some of the planet’s most essential climate questions. Braving extreme weather and treacherous waves, they place data-collecting buoys far out in the ocean, use high-tech contraptions to map the deepest parts of the seabed and collect samples to monitor the ways warming waters affect marine life.
It’s essential work, said Appelgate, who helps coordinate the fleets and their missions as chair of the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) Council. And like scores of climate science efforts today, it’s under threat because of funding cuts and uncertainty.
These ships are just one vital thread within the decades-old tapestry of government-funded climate research that began fraying this year because of slashes to the federal workforce and scientific funding. The cuts have reached many corners of climate science’s myriad specialties, from extreme heat forecasters to right whale researchers — and could change America’s standing as a leader in the field."
Ruby Mellen reports for the Washington Post December 24, 2025.
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