The National Science Foundation announced it will dismantle a major ocean observation network that has been used to help identify the effects of climate change and other environmental impacts around the world for the last decade.
The move to disband the far-flung system involves removing hundreds of underwater instruments in areas of the Gulf of Alaska and along the coasts of Washington, Oregon, New England and North Carolina. Equipment would also be removed from the Irminger Sea between Greenland and Iceland, according to an announcement posted by NSF on May 21.
The agency will leave in place, for now, an array of equipment collecting data from a tectonic plate off the Pacific Northwest coast.
Known as the Ocean Observatories Initiative, the network was established in 2016 to help scientists investigate a variety of ocean processes, including changes in marine food webs, the movements of undersea tectonic plates, the exchange of gases between the ocean and the atmosphere, and the impacts of climate change. The project includes a $368 million array of instruments in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
According to a statement from OOI’s principal investigator, Jim Edson, the so-called descoping process will take place over the next 15 months.
“Over more than a decade, OOI has delivered the world’s most advanced continuously operating ocean observing systems, supporting science, engineering, education, and workforce development across the ocean sciences community,” Edson said. “We are profoundly grateful for the extraordinary efforts of the scientists, engineers, operators, educators, students, and partners who made this facility possible and who continue to advance its legacy through the use of its data.”
The NSF has already started dismantling the network off the coasts of Washington and Oregon. Equipment in the waters near New England, North Carolina, the Gulf of Alaska and the Irminger Sea are scheduled for removal next summer.
An agency spokesperson, Michael England, said in an email that NSF was not canceling the program entirely.
“The decision to descope aligns with NSF’s wider strategy of a nimbler approach to prioritize support for evolving scientific priorities and emerging technologies, as well as smart lifecycle management within its research infrastructure portfolio,” he said.
The decision to dismantle the network, he said, was based partly on recommendations included in a 2025 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.
The report suggested that OOI “would benefit from a revisioning and restructuring exercise” that better accounts for the needs of the ocean science community. It suggested analyzing the scientific capabilities of each of the project’s instrument arrays and considering ways to incorporate new technology. It did not suggest dismantling the network.
Researchers have decried the decision as an attack on science by the Trump administration, which has gutted staff, frozen and canceled scientific grants, and proposed deep cuts to scientific programs at federal agencies over the past 16 months.
Former NOAA chief scientist Craig McLean told The New York Times, which first reported on the decision, that dismantling the system would “push the United States back yet again into a rear seat in global scientific leadership.”
