Q&A: Richard Spinrad’s parting thoughts on climate risk

By Daniel Cusick | 01/13/2025 06:17 AM EST

The NOAA administrator says he hopes his successor “understands the balance” between research, policy and regulation.

NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad

NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad speaking at Florida International University on Aug. 1, 2022, in Miami. Lynne Sladky/AP

Richard Spinrad was a relative newcomer to NOAA when the much-anticipated “Climate Stewardship Act of 2003” imploded in the Senate.

He had recently been appointed chief of the agency’s Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) division under George W. Bush, giving him a front-row seat on the death of an early NOAA directive to study “abrupt climate change” — defined as change “that happens so rapidly or unexpectedly that human or natural systems may have difficulty adapting to it.”

Two decades later, as Spinrad winds down his last NOAA assignment as undersecretary of Commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator, he remains focused on understanding how climate warming is fueling mega-disasters that scientists say are developing more rapidly and behaving more erratically than ever.

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Some conservative critics of NOAA have argued the agency should be downsized or broken up and suggested that President-elect Donald Trump should take that step. In an interview with POLITICO’s E&E News, Spinrad defended NOAA’s multifaceted mission and its work, including its response to climate threats.

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