American oceanographer Carl Wunsch, one of the pioneering figures in the study of the effects of climate change on the oceans, has issued a stark warning about the impact that the Donald Trump administration is having on climate science in the United States. In an interview given to El Pais English, Wunsch describes a landscape of budget cuts, institutional distrust and a climate of denialism that, he explains, threatens decades of accumulated oceanographic research.
Wunsch, professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and an internationally recognized authority on ocean circulation and its role in regulating the global climate, denounces that numerous research projects are being denied funding on the grounds that scientific findings about global warming would be, in his own words as reported by the newspaper, a "hoax". This characterization, the scientist argues, ignores decades of empirical data gathered by multiple generations of researchers around the world.
Wunsch's testimony joins the voices of alarm that numerous American scientists have expressed since Trump's return to the White House. Federal agencies such as NASA, NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and the National Science Foundation have repeatedly been singled out as targets of budget cuts and shifting priorities that have directly affected long-running climate and ocean monitoring programs.
Oceanography, unlike other branches of climate science, depends heavily on continuous data series obtained through buoys, satellites and maritime expeditions that span decades. As Wunsch explains in the interview, the interruption of these programs not only affects current research but also compromises historical series that are extremely difficult, and in some cases impossible, to reconstruct once interrupted.
The researcher, whose work has been fundamental to understanding how ocean currents transport heat and regulate the planet's climate, emphasizes in the conversation with El Pais English the importance of international scientific cooperation in the face of this type of institutional crisis. In his view, knowledge about the ocean and its relationship to climate change is a collective heritage that transcends national borders and should not be subject to the swings of the domestic politics of a single country, however influential that country may be in global scientific production.
Wunsch also warns of the risks posed by climate change denialist movements, which, according to the scientist, have found in the current American administration a favorable political framework for questioning the established scientific consensus. This dynamic, he notes, not only affects funding for specific projects but also erodes public trust in scientific institutions and in the scientific method itself as a tool for understanding complex phenomena such as global warming.
Wunsch's case is not isolated. Numerous American climate scientists have chosen to move their research to European institutions or have sought alternative funding through international bodies given the uncertainty surrounding federal funds in the United States. This phenomenon, which some analysts have called a scientific brain drain, could have lasting consequences for American leadership in ocean and climate research, a field in which the country has historically been at the forefront.
The European Union, for its part, has in recent years strengthened its climate and ocean research programs, including initiatives such as Copernicus, the European Commission's Earth observation program, which could benefit from the incorporation of researchers and knowledge from American institutions affected by the cuts. Spain, with an established tradition in oceanography through institutions such as the Spanish Institute of Oceanography, is part of this international scientific cooperation network that Wunsch defends as essential in the face of the American funding crisis.
Wunsch's statements come at a time when the effects of climate change on the oceans are increasingly visible and measurable: rising sea levels, ocean acidification and alterations in ocean currents are among the consequences most documented by the international scientific community in recent decades. The possible interruption of American monitoring programs could hinder the global capacity to anticipate and respond to these phenomena with the precision the scientific community has managed to achieve until now.
Wunsch himself, with a career spanning more than five decades dedicated to the study of the ocean, represents in a sense the kind of accumulated knowledge that, he warns, is at risk of being lost if current policies of cutbacks and distrust toward climate science persist over time. His call for international cooperation, reported by El Pais English, is presented as a possible way to preserve the continuity of research that, he stresses, is essential for understanding the future of the planet beyond the political cycles of any particular country.