{"id":171,"date":"2026-05-12T06:33:29","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T06:33:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bouldermovingguide.com\/?p=171"},"modified":"2026-05-12T06:33:29","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T06:33:29","slug":"half-of-staff-at-boulders-noaa-global-monitoring-lab-face-furloughs-as-funding-freeze-drags-on-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bouldermovingguide.com\/?p=171","title":{"rendered":"Half of staff at Boulder\u2019s NOAA Global Monitoring Lab face furloughs as funding freeze drags on"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

About half of the staff at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration\u2019s Global Monitoring Lab in Boulder will be furloughed in May if federal funding is not released.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more Boulder\u2019s powerlines pose wildfire risk. Why are so many still above ground?<\/a><\/p>\n

The lab tracks and analyzes greenhouse gases, solar radiation, aerosols and ozone levels. More than half of the scientists at the lab work through CU Boulder\u2019s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), one of 16 cooperative institutes affiliated with NOAA. Their work and salaries are funded through federal grants that were paused Feb. 27, according to CIRES Director Waleed Abdalati.<\/p>\n

Abdalati said that the federal government typically funds the labs several months to a year in advance, and in the past, when funding lagged, the university trusted \u201cthat the government was good for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut given the current funding environment, that\u2019s a risk that we just can\u2019t take,\u201d he said. \u201cSo when the money runs out, we need to stop the work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Funding officially ran out for CIRES Global Monitoring Lab employees on March 24. The university informed 42 employees this week that they would be furloughed without pay on May 15 unless federal funding comes through \u2014 in which case the furloughs would be rescinded.<\/p>\n

Abdalati said they did not receive official notification of a funding pause, but were told by their \u201cfinance counterparts\u201d at the federal level that most NOAA grants were frozen. The grants would likely not move forward until the Trump administration outlines how it intends to spend money Congress appropriated for NOAA.<\/p>\n

\u201cCongress has appropriated the funds, the Secretary of Commerce has approved the movement of the funds. It\u2019s just that they\u2019re not being released by the Office of Management and Budget,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

An April 1 CU Boulder statement said that the university, along with CIRES and NOAA leadership, is \u201cactively engaged at multiple levels to advocate for the release of these funds so the important work at GML can continue.\u201d<\/p>\n

In previous budget guidance, the Trump administration directed Congress to terminate \u201cclimate-dominated research\u201d within NOAA and end programs that \u201cspread environmental alarm.\u201d Congress opted not to adhere to much of the Trump administration\u2019s requests to reduce NOAA funding.<\/p>\n

The stalled funding comes as the Office of Management and Budget has delayed the release of appropriated funds to numerous scientific agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation and NASA, according to the journal Nature. As a result, the NIH and NSF have only awarded a fraction of the grants they typically award.<\/p>\n

Congress approved a budget for most federal agencies in late January. In the past, U.S. agencies received permission from OMB to spend portions of their funding in 30-day increments until a final spending plan was approved. But OMB has changed that process this year, allowing it to limit the release of funds during those 30-day periods, Nature reports.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more Boulder\u2019s water supply hangs on for now amid historic drought conditions<\/a><\/p>\n

OMB Director Russell Vought has written in Project 2025 that the OMB\u2019s role in distributing government funding can to \u201censure against waste, fraud, and abuse and ensure consistency with the President\u2019s agenda and applicable laws.\u201d<\/p>\n

All of NOAA\u2019s cooperative institutes are funded through federal grants like the one that supports Global Monitoring Lab employees. Abdalati said the lab\u2019s grant may be among the first affected by\u00a0 the Feb. 27 pause, and that other cooperative institutes could be vulnerable to financial hardship and staff cuts if the pause continues.<\/p>\n

NOAA\u2019s Global Monitoring Lab tracks carbon emissions and uptake, as well as how carbon moves through the atmosphere, which informs work on carbon capture and other efforts to address climate change. It also researches ozone levels and monitors the recovery of the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica.<\/p>\n

The lab also monitors and analyzes changes in radiation, clouds and aerosols, all of which impact weather and climate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe work they do is the gold standard against which all other types of measurements tend to be compared,\u201d Abdalati said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cUnderstanding the radiation distribution, cloud movements and formation and aerosol characteristics help us understand not just the weather of today, and not just the climate of 10 years from now, but the implications for farmers, for ranchers, for tourism,\u201d he said. \u201cEveryone should appreciate the value of knowing what\u2019s going on. It\u2019s like trying to decide what to wear without a thermometer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Losing half of the lab\u2019s scientists would cripple much of its work.<\/p>\n

If funding doesn\u2019t come in before May 15 and CIRES employees are placed on furlough, they can be called back immediately if and when the money is released. But Abdalati said just issuing the furlough notices has a negative impact on scientists.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of damage is being done when you tell people the government is choosing not to release the funds that pay your salary,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s terrible for morale. And once that die is cast, sometimes it\u2019s hard to uncast it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abdalati said the university is \u201cdoing all we can\u201d to support employees but cannot make up for the funding shortfall for more than the next 45 days.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrankly, it breaks my heart as an employer, as a citizen,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is very upsetting to know that Congress has allocated the resources to carry out these critical functions, and yet here we are having run out of funding to do the work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Three recent Boulder fires were likely human-caused, officials say<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most staff at Boulder\u2019s NOAA Global Monitoring Lab are funded through federal grants that have not been released.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[28],"class_list":["post-171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trump-2-0-in-boulder","tag-noaa"],"yoast_head":"\nHalf of staff at Boulder\u2019s NOAA Global Monitoring Lab face furloughs as funding freeze drags on - Boulder Moving Guide<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/bouldermovingguide.com\/?p=171\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Half of staff at Boulder\u2019s NOAA Global Monitoring Lab face furloughs as funding freeze drags on - 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