The National Science Foundation has told the National Center for Atmospheric Research that management and operations of the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center will be shifted to a third-party operator, saying the move is consistent with NSF’s cooperative agreement with the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. The Wyoming facility, a backbone of U.S. climate and weather modeling, hosts supercomputers that power research on everything from long-term warming trends to day-to-day storm forecasts. Scientists now warn that the Trump administration’s decision to remove those machines from NCAR’s control could disrupt vital research, with key details about timing and future operators still unclear.
The Role of NCAR and the Wyoming Supercomputing Center
The NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center is described by NCAR as a high-performance computing facility operated by NSF NCAR under sponsorship from the National Science Foundation, in partnership with the University of Wyoming and the state of Wyoming. It was built to give U.S. researchers access to powerful computing systems that can handle the massive datasets involved in atmospheric and climate science, including global circulation models and regional weather simulations. NCAR’s own documentation presents the center as a national resource that supports university scientists across the country, not just in Colorado and Wyoming.
Within that facility, NCAR runs major systems such as the Derecho supercomputer, which is dedicated to large-scale modeling of the atmosphere, oceans, and related Earth systems. Derecho and its predecessors have been used to refine projections of temperature and precipitation, test hurricane-intensity models, and evaluate how wildfire smoke spreads through the atmosphere. Because these simulations require tightly integrated software, data archives, and expert staff, NCAR portrays the Wyoming Supercomputing Center as one piece of a broader ecosystem that ties observations, modeling, and analysis together in a single scientific workflow.
NSF’s Official Restructuring Plan
In its primary announcement, the National Science Foundation said it is transitioning operations of the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center from NSF NCAR to a third-party operator, describing the step as consistent with its cooperative agreement with UCAR. That statement confirmed that NSF had informed NCAR of the expected change in stewardship and framed the decision as part of a broader review of how the agency manages high-performance computing resources. NSF emphasized that the move does not eliminate the facility itself, but instead changes who will run the supercomputers and oversee day-to-day operations.
A separate NSF notice outlined a wider intent to restructure critical weather science infrastructure, including exploring options to transfer stewardship of the NCAR-Wyoming supercomputer, divesting or transferring the two NSF aircraft that NCAR currently operates, and redefining the scope of modeling and forecasting activities supported through NCAR. That restructuring is unfolding in the context of NSF’s five-year cooperative agreement with UCAR to manage NCAR, which UCAR says carries an approximate budget ceiling of $1 billion. UCAR’s description of that agreement notes that NSF funds are supplemented by interagency transfers, underscoring how decisions about supercomputing and aircraft affect multiple federal partners, not just NSF.
Administration’s Stated Rationale and Broader Context
According to reporting from the Associated Press, officials in the Trump administration have framed the restructuring of NCAR and the Wyoming supercomputing facility as part of an effort to rein in what they describe as “climate alarmism” in federal science. The AP account portrays NCAR as a leading climate research hub whose models and analyses frequently inform assessments of human-driven warming, making it a target for political aides who have challenged mainstream climate science. In that coverage, administration figures are quoted as arguing that NCAR’s work has been too focused on long-term climate change and not enough on short-term forecasting, a criticism many researchers dispute.
The Washington Post reported that an internal email obtained from NSF described plans to transfer the NCAR-Wyoming supercomputer to another operator and publish a formal letter explaining the changes. That reporting situates the move within a broader push by the Trump team to reshape federal climate research, citing officials who complained that NCAR’s studies fed into international assessments that they saw as politically damaging. In its own restructuring announcement, NSF said its intent is to restructure critical weather infrastructure to support core forecasting needs, a phrase that has raised questions among scientists about whether politically sensitive climate work will be deprioritized even if basic weather prediction continues.
Immediate Reactions from Scientists and Stakeholders
The nonprofit consortium that manages NSF NCAR, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, responded cautiously in its first public statement. UCAR said it was “aware of reports” that NSF NCAR could be dismantled but did not yet have additional information from NSF beyond what had been publicly announced. In the same statement, UCAR stressed that NCAR’s integrated capabilities support public safety and national security, warning that breaking apart the center’s activities could weaken the country’s ability to respond to extreme weather, wildfires, and other hazards. UCAR framed the situation as not just a budget or management dispute, but a question of whether the United States will maintain a coordinated national capability in atmospheric science.
Scientific societies have reacted with sharper language. The American Astronomical Society said NSF’s announced intention to “restructure” NCAR would remove or strip key assets from what it described as a federally funded research and development center-like model, warning that such a move risks hollowing out a public-private partnership that took decades to build. Space-focused coverage has similarly argued that transferring the Wyoming supercomputer and other assets away from NCAR would degrade national capabilities in climate and weather science, quoting researchers who say that losing direct control of the machines they rely on could slow or fragment critical projects. At least two scientists quoted in those reports describe the potential dismantling of NCAR’s integrated system as a blow to both basic research and the practical forecasting tools that protect lives and property.
Potential Impacts on Climate and Weather Research
Energy and environment specialists have emphasized that NCAR’s strength lies in the way it combines observing systems, high-resolution models, and supercomputing into a single coordinated effort. Coverage in E&E News describes the Trump team as “breaking up” a top climate research center by separating functions that were designed to work together, including the Wyoming supercomputing facility, specialized aircraft, and modeling groups. That reporting highlights concerns that once those pieces are under different managers with different priorities, the friction of coordinating across institutional lines could slow down research on issues such as drought, wildfire risk, and air quality.
Space.com has laid out concrete examples of what Americans could lose if NCAR is dismantled, pointing to programs that use NCAR’s models and computers to improve hurricane forecasting and assess how climate change might influence storm tracks and intensity. Those accounts explain that NCAR’s supercomputers run ensembles of simulations that help forecasters understand the range of possible hurricane paths and surge impacts, information that emergency managers use when deciding on evacuations. While the available reporting does not pin down exactly how quickly those capabilities would degrade under a new operator, scientists quoted by multiple outlets say that even temporary disruptions in access to the Wyoming systems could slow model development and reduce the accuracy of seasonal outlooks and extreme-weather risk assessments.
Unresolved Questions and Next Steps
Despite NSF’s public announcements, major uncertainties remain about how and when the transition of the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center will occur. The NSF notice on transitioning operations does not identify the prospective third-party operator or provide a detailed timeline, saying only that the change will be carried out consistent with the existing cooperative agreement. The separate NSF statement on intent to restructure similarly outlines options under consideration, such as divesting the two NSF aircraft and redefining modeling scope, but leaves open key questions about how those decisions will be implemented and how much funding will remain under UCAR’s approximately $1 billion agreement to manage NCAR.
Outside analyses, including coverage in E&E News and Space.com, have raised the possibility that the restructuring could be accompanied by significant cuts to NCAR’s budget, but those projections are must-attributed and not confirmed in NSF’s own documents. UCAR has said it lacks detailed information on the scope of the changes, and NSF has not publicly explained how it will ensure that a new operator of the Wyoming supercomputer will prioritize open, researcher-driven climate and weather projects to the same extent NCAR has. For readers, the stakes come down to whether the forecasts that guide hurricane evacuations, wildfire planning, and long-term infrastructure decisions will continue to be backed by the same depth of modeling and computing power, or whether a politically driven reshuffle will leave the country with weaker tools just as climate risks are rising.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
