To date, the OOI system has provided critical data used to understand how the ocean absorbs atmospheric greenhouse gases, how marine heat waves threaten commercial fisheries, and how sea levels trigger coastal flooding along the East Coast.
Fixed 2,800 metres below the surface, the Irminger Sea moorings have been crucial to tracking dangerous changes occurring in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current (AMOC), a global current system that scientists fear could be destabilising.
Moorings stretching west off Newport, Ore, and Grays Harbor, Wash, captured data about temperature, acidity and oxygen data used by the commercial fishing industry to anticipate devastating environmental shifts.
The infrastructure cost $370 million to build, but required $48 million annually to maintain.
The network’s high-tech design featured heavily hardened instruments built to withstand extreme deep-sea pressure, corrosive seawater, and withstand destruction from marine life.
By using remotely controlled robotic vehicles and underwater gliders to beam data directly back to labs onshore, the network allowed scientists to safely collect large amounts of information without launching risky, difficult, and expensive deep-sea boat expeditions every year.
Dr Helen Palevsky, professor of earth and environmental sciences at Boston college, has used data from the OOI’s observation network to better understand how the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide.
She told the New York Times that: “One of the real tragedies here is that collecting data effectively at this site was a huge engineering challenge, and it’s not the kind of thing where you can just leave your notes for the next person who comes in, there’s a lot of expertise that has the potential to be lost.”
The dismantling is the latest escalation in a broader effort by the administration to scale back federal climate science. Just last month, the administration announced an additional $1.1 billion in budget cuts targeting research on marine wildlife, ocean currents, and fish populations.
Both international and American scientists have criticised the decision to decommission the network.
Craig McLean, who served as the chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) during Trump’s first term said: “This reflects the further lack of understanding that the current administration has of scientific value and scientific merit,”
“By dismantling such a system, we push the United States back yet again into a rear seat in global scientific leadership,” he added.
Professor Helen Findlay, a biological oceanographer at the Plymouth Marine Labortary criticised the decision and said: “Sustained ocean observations are how we detect emerging risks in real time, from shifts in circulation to changes in chemistry and ecosystem health. Without them, we are effectively choosing to navigate an increasingly volatile ocean with diminishing visibility.”
“Scaling back the very systems that help us track these shifts risks leaving society unprepared for their consequences. If anything, this moment should strengthen, not weaken, our commitment to sustained ocean observation and climate research,” she added.