This commentary is by Clif Harald, principal of First Flatiron Consulting, which specializes in community economic vitality. He co-founded the Boulder Economic Council at the Boulder Chamber and led the program for 12 years. Most recently, he served on the faculty of CU Boulder’s Outdoor Recreation Economy program. A Colorado native and CU graduate, he has lived in the Boulder area for more than 50 years.
The timing could hardly be more conspicuous. In December, the Trump administration issued a directive to “break up” Boulder’s National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), labeling it “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.” Only a month later, an extraordinarily powerful winter storm tore across the U.S. Plains, the South and the Northeast.
As of this writing, the January storm has killed more than 100 people, and it will take weeks, if not longer, to calculate the likely multibillion-dollar toll on communities across the country. How much worse could losses like these be in the future if advanced warnings from weather forecasts, made possible by NCAR scientists and their models, are politicized, weakened and/or delayed?
Dismantling NCAR could dangerously disrupt scientific research that advances our ability to anticipate and often mitigate the life-threatening risks of extreme weather in a changing climate. That work is not climate alarmism. It is climate realism, grounded in decades of evidence and paid for many times over in lives saved and losses avoided.
NCAR was founded in 1960 under the leadership of Walter Orr Roberts who envisioned unifying the emerging, but fragmented field of atmospheric science. He knew that advancing our understanding of both long-term climate dynamics and short-term weather events required deep collaboration among scientists in research labs across the U.S. and the globe.
Since its founding, NCAR scientists and partners have earned innumerable honors, including a share of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Most importantly, NCAR helped establish a scientific culture that treats public safety as a core responsibility, connecting research directly to real-world risks and informing the decisions of those charged with protecting lives and communities.
Even with state-of-the-art forecasting, advanced modeling and best practices in collaborative science, climate change and extreme weather events already exact a deadly toll. In 2024, the most recent full year for which complete NOAA data are available, 27 major weather and climate disasters caused at least 568 direct or indirect fatalities.
Beyond the loss of life, severe weather inflicts staggering economic damage. Also in 2024, dozens of large weather and climate disasters caused $183 billion in damage to homes, businesses, public infrastructure and other community assets. Since NOAA began tracking these events in 1980, the United States has experienced 403 disasters that each caused at least $1 billion in damage, with cumulative losses exceeding $2.9 trillion.
Breaking up NCAR would worsen this already sobering picture. If dismantling the lab leads to political litmus tests for scientists and compromised modeling capabilities, the nation’s ability to keep pace with accelerating climate risks would likely worsen, and recent losses would likely be magnified.
Disturbingly, the integrity of future data is already in jeopardy. Even as extreme weather is becoming more frequent and more deadly, NOAA webpages now declare that after June 25, 2025, some online data is “not being updated or maintained, and some links may no longer work.”
The fallout from dismantling NCAR would also reverberate through our state and local economies. A 2017 report by CU Boulder’s Leeds School of Business found that federal research labs in Colorado generated a statewide economic impact of $2.6 billion annually – $3.5 billion in today’s dollars.
The report didn’t isolate NCAR specifically. But using inflation-adjusted data from the report, and assuming 830 NCAR employees and the multiplier effects associated with those jobs, the value to Colorado’s economy of that single lab approaches $400 million annually. A majority of that value accrues to Boulder County. Most, if not all, of these economic benefits would be lost if NCAR is broken apart and moved away.
Boulder and Colorado should be clear-eyed about what is at stake. NCAR is not an abstract federal entity; it has long been a cornerstone of Boulder’s economy, a key driver in Colorado’s science ecosystem, and a guardian of public safety far beyond our state’s borders. A lab built over decades could be broken up in a few years; rebuilding it could take generations, if it happens at all.
Our congressional delegation and state officials must continue to do all they can to protect NCAR’s funding and mission, and local leaders and residents should use every platform available to oppose efforts that would hollow out the lab or force it elsewhere.
Brilliant and well written, thank you!