The White House today announced it plans to make major changes in how the U.S. government manages research funding. https://scim.ag/43HgW4s

🧵 Public science in the US has taken some heavy hits over the last year, but the White House OMB is proposing a series of changes that will result in a TKO for science as we know it unless we fight back. Here's what's happening, and why it matters. 1/n

This is bad for Americans.

I know there is a lot going on, and not all of this is new, but numerous aspects of this OMB proposal are highly alarming and would, if enacted, effectively force American scientists receiving federal funding (which is...most of them in some capacity or another) to stop engaging with the public.

Antithetical to the independence we need in our federal agencies, to protect them from politically motivated decision making that may help some Americans while harming others. There is no transparency, oversight, or accountability coming from this WH.

Federally funded research conducted at US universities has no profit margin. Thought I’d mention. No reason.

The U.S. research community is asking the Senate to do something it hasn’t done in more than 3 decades: Hold a hearing on the president’s nominee to lead the National Science Foundation before voting on whether to confirm him. https://scim.ag/4dWgoxE

NSF is closing down most of the Ocean Observatory oceanobservatories.org/2026/05/anno...

bsky.app/profile/wend... This is wilfully crippling our ability to understand what is coming down the climate pipeline and to mange costly and acknowledged risks (www.dcceew.gov.au/climate-chan...) facing our nation. It is madness. Choosing to drive down the highway partly blindfolded.

tough to overstate how quickly science funding in New Zealand has been blown to pieces - on Friday the NZ govt straight up disbanded the Marsden fund (our version of the NSF) it'll be replaced by a 'transition fund' with less money and zero information, as of yet, about what it will support #nzpol

Greenland: the Louisiana angle captured well in this Reuters article via Honolulu Star Advertiser. Special envoy / governor with billionaire shipbuilder / operator Chouest (maker-operator of former NSF Antarctic icebreakers, newest USCG breaker Aiviq/Storis) with interest in Arctic maritime…

The National Science Board urges a robust response to China’s rise in a cover letter to its biennial report on the global research enterprise. https://scim.ag/4uNNfKy

How do we know old Antarctic ice is old? Got a few minutes? Atmospheric argon isotope dating: a process discovered last century here at UMN (Al Nier) & perfected by scientists at Princeton (Bender). This is COLDEX science funded by NSF and conducted in university communities nationwide.

The greatest scientific research funding program in world history, illegally gutted & now replaced with a pipeline of pure grift for charlatans. Mindless stupidity & corruption.

A bit late to this, but on Weds the House Appropriations Committee passed the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies bill (funding NSF/NASA/NIST/NOAA).

On being a polar scientist--with a camera to share about it--in the USA in 2026. Read to hear about science, its role in society, & my journey to science through the US public K-12 / university system. Shoutouts to my parents, FDR, Vannevar Bush, Richard Byrd… delphizero.substack.com/p/pete

Like Antarctic ice cores & the climate perspective they provide? They only happen with the 7 decades of sustained support we’ve given to the National Science Foundation, United States Antarctic Program, and Operation Deep Freeze. My two cents (or 180 seconds):

Per office hours today, NSF Office of Polar Programs now in Office of the Director. Arctic and Antarctic Sciences sections now one Polar Science. Doing more with less vibes. Administration priorities heavily feature in slide deck, as does AI content in slides which conveys a lot between the lines…

Per office hours today, NSF Office of Polar Programs now in Office of the Director. Arctic and Antarctic Sciences sections now one Polar Science. Doing more with less vibes. Administration priorities heavily feature in slide deck, as does AI content in slides which conveys a lot between the lines…

"What’s kind of striking is, in general in paleoscience, every time we have improved reconstructions of CO2, we find out that it’s playing the major role in climate.” - @mudwaterclimate.bsky.social www.science.org/content/arti...

Distracted by this quite serious news. Likely not legal by my reading of statute which doesn’t include any protocol for presidential firing of NSB members, just appointing authority and member terms/limits…

Members of the National Science Board, which the U.S. Congress founded in 1950, were given no explanation for their termination

File under: additional dangerous meddling in international affairs by the 2026 State Dept. Polar scientists, note Falkland sovereignty extends to UK - Argentina disputes over overlapping Antarctic territorial claims (in ways I surely barely comprehend)

“I have watched the systematic dismantling of the scientific advisory infrastructure of this government with growing alarm, and the National Science Board is simply the latest casualty.”

The National Science Board has had staggered six-year terms since 1950, by design. On Friday all 24 members were fired by email. The next board meeting is May 5. www.forbes.com/sites/johndr...

A five alarm fire within a five alarm fire for US science 🚨

Can we not with this, NYT?? 🤦‍♂️

'The NSF has only committed $500 million of the $8 billion it was appropriated for the fiscal year, which began on Oct. 1. The NSF will lose the billions of remaining funding if it does not spend it by Sept. 30.' thehill.com/homenews/adm...

I've excerpted a ~5 minute segment from my recent livestream discussing my deepening concerns regarding on the ongoing (and accelerating) threats not only to weather and climate science, but American science leadership and continuity at large.

The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force will withdraw from #Antarctic research vessel operations after nearly six decades, with private-sector entities expected to take over following the retirement of the icebreaker #Shirase in fiscal 2034. www.newsonjapan.com/article/1488...

Let us be radicalized by the skillful competence of NASA public servants and their career colleagues across our federal agencies. Let Artemis II help us hold on to our love for these investments in ourselves!

New paper: @ptrckflmm.bsky.social (@prif.org), Christian Reuter (@peasec.de) and myself teamed up to analyze technological challenges alongside geopolitical implications of connecting Antarctica 🇦🇶 with other territories (🇳🇿, 🇨🇱) through subsea data cables. Open access here: doi.org/10.1016/j.te...

The images of Earth from Artemis are amazing. But if we destroy our ability to understand (and live on) our planet, all they are is pretty pictures www.nytimes.com/2026/04/08/o...

Some articles really don’t need to be written. Further fueling the 2048 Antarctic resource extraction myth also not helpful. (2048 is not a magical opportunity for mining within the Antarctic Treaty, and steady commitment to counter any impulses for resource extraction is a must for US policy)

👀 A $900M (and much needed) future #Antarctic Research Vessel has found its way to the top of the 2027 NSF president’s budget request… making up a scary fraction of a very small budget for our critical federal R&D funding, another attempted 54% reduction.

US #Antarctic scientists have no research #icebreaker. In a world where #polar regions are changing and increasingly tense, this is a big blind spot limiting progression of human knowledge and preservation of Antarctica for peace, international cooperation, and science.

I don't think there's much sense in overanalyzing this list, This admin is so anti-science that I'd be surprised if this council affects much actual policy. But this roster gives us a perfect look at what science and technology this admin thinks is important…

While everyone is (rightly) obsessed with levels of CO2 in the atmosphere 3 million years ago, don't sleep the observation that avg. atmospheric methane (CH4) DOES NOT APPEAR TO HAVE CHANGED AT ALL over the last 3 million years (1/4). www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I miss pretending we in the US did things together for the American people. We can barely do science on earth right now as American scientists…

New Nature paper by PhD candidate Julia Marks Peterson! @jmarkspeterson.bsky.social and her COLDEX collaborators published their findings on atmospheric CO2 and CH4 over the past 3 million years based on measurements of ice cores from the Allan Hills, Antarctica. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Key climate shifts in the past 3 million years may have been more heavily influenced by changing ocean temperatures than greenhouse gases, according to analyses of ancient Antarctic ice cores published in two Nature papers. go.nature.com/41cCdBT go.nature.com/3Pkaa0M 🧪 🌊

President Donald Trump’s budget office has disrupted the traditional process used to implement spending directives from Congress. https://scim.ag/4rBqcRu

Lots of previously unreported allegations in the lawsuit, including how NOAA also terminated a cooperative agreement with UCAR at the same time as the NCAR news, and how NSF demanded individual cost accounting for every UCAR employee that attended AMS with only 6 days to turn it around.

US McMurdo Station, #Antarctica on departure. Largest research station on the continent, operated by the United States Antarctic Program of the National Science Foundation. Supported by Operation Deep Freeze. Jan 2023.

Please read books. They are helpful. These are about the #Arctic. I think #peace and international cooperation in the polar regions should remain a thing.

Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf heading for collapse. Monthly average velocities Jan 2025 to Feb 2026 derived from EU Copernicus Programme Sentinel-1 SAR data. Grounding lines in black and yellow from NASA MEaSUREs

Lawyers are looking at the long game and considering the likelihood of a courtroom scenario that has no modern precedent in state history: criminal charges being filed by the state, without the cooperation of the federal government, against federal officers for use of deadly force.

Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar was speaking at a town hall event when she was rushed by a man who sprayed a liquid at her via a syringe. n.pr/3LGNR46

I wish I could just post about glacier ice again but you should really stay aware of how ICE and friends and those inspired by this administration are terrorizing my adopted home city Minneapolis Saint Paul (I live in one and work in both, for the record).