The Trump administration is moving to dismantle the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), one of the world's most vital sources of climate and oceanic data.
Ships will be dispatched this month to remove more than 900 deep-sea instruments that have continuously monitored physical, chemical, and biological conditions across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans for the past decade.
The National Science Foundation has initiated a 'descoping' process, ordering the removal of all in-water infrastructure from four of the OOI’s five deployed arrays. These include stations in the Irminger Sea, Station Papa, and off the U.S. Atlantic coast near Greenland and Iceland.
The initiative was originally designed to operate for 25 years. Critics warn this will eliminate data essential for studying the collapsing Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a key ocean current system.