The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track planetary extreme, or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials).😜
Here is a new feature for this blog, which I will add daily. This is the latest inciteful Green News Report from my friends Desi Doyen and Brad Friedman at Progressive Voices. Hit ‘continue reading,’ listen, then hit return to see my daily topics:
Main Topic: Trump Backs Off Plan to End Ocean Monitoring
Dear Diary. It now appears that the vice grip that Trump and his cronies have had on policy and American society in general is starting to loosen. Due to Trumo’s inept handling of his Iran War, even conservative Republicans are now questioning Trump’s judgment of many things, such as scuttling hardware already committed to doing a mission. I wrote about that two weeks ago:
Largely due to prodding from his own party, Trump has reversed that expensive decision, so scientists csn continue to monitor ocean changes without fear that their buoys meant to do so will go silent.
Here are more details from the New York Times:
Trump Administration Backs Off Plan to End Ocean Monitoring System – The New York Times
Trump Administration Backs Off Plan to End Ocean Monitoring
The reversal comes after the Senate passed a bipartisan bill on Wednesday to block the removal of deep-sea monitoring instruments.
A data-collecting buoy off the Carolina coast. The National Science Foundation was planning to begin removing hundreds of ocean instruments that measure ocean data this month. Credit…Darlene Trew Crist/WHOI, via Associated Press
Reporting from Washington
June 18, 2026
The Trump administration is abandoning its plan to dismantle a $368 million ocean monitoring system critical to understanding climate change and marine ecosystems, bowing to a bipartisan backlash on Capitol Hill.
The National Science Foundation had said in May that it would begin removing hundreds of underwater instruments this month that collect data on coastal flooding, marine heat waves and other climate and weather events.
But the agency announced on Thursday that it will pause efforts to take apart the system, known as the Ocean Observatories Initiative, while convening an expert panel to determine its future.
“Effective immediately, N.S.F. will not proceed with further removal or de-scoping of equipment,” the agency said in a statement.
The Senate passed a measure Wednesday that would block the government from dismantling the system, with lawmakers in both parties warning that the action would be illegal and would threaten the safety of coastal communities. The Trump administration had also tried to cut the program’s funds the last two years, but Congress restored the money both times.
In May, the science foundation had said it would send ships to start pulling up instruments anchored to the sea floor off the coasts of Oregon, Washington State, Alaska, North Carolina, and an area between Greenland and Iceland known as the Irminger Sea.
For the past decade, scientists have used data from these instruments to understand how the ocean is absorbing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, how marine heat waves could affect fisheries and how soon a vital ocean current could collapse.
Fishermen have also checked the real-time, publicly available data on wind and wave conditions before heading to sea. And meteorologists have used these observations to improve forecasts of disasters like hurricanes and tsunamis.
The National Science Foundation said on Thursday that it already had pulled some buoys, sensors and other instruments from the water off the coasts of Oregon and Washington State, but it was “developing plans to redeploy the equipment after servicing.”
“I believe we could have one mooring ready to go before the end of the summer and 1-2 others ready by fall,” Dr. Dever said in an email, adding, “Ships are generally scheduled about a year in advance. Scheduling cruises on short notice can sometimes be done, but it is a challenge.”
The Senate on Wednesday passed the measure to preserve the system by unanimous consent, essentially an agreement by all senators to bypass debate. Though the measure faced an uncertain fate in the House, it was the latest moment when Congress flexed its power of the purse to thwart the Trump administration’s attempts to cut climate and environmental programs.
Senators Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, and Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, shown at a Senate meeting last summer. Credit…Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times
The measure was sponsored by Senators Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, and Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska. In an interview on Thursday, Ms. Murkowski criticized the Trump administration for failing to consult Congress before beginning to remove some monitoring equipment.
“N.S.F. moved forward on their own, not only unilaterally, but really with no warning, no heads up,” she said. “They didn’t even bother to check in,” she added, “and that’s where the real foul was.”
Ms. Murkowski said fisheries in Alaska relied on the ocean data to determine how increasing temperatures were threatening certain species. She said other data was crucial to understanding El Niño, the powerful weather pattern that formed this month in the tropical Pacific and could supercharge extreme weather events around the globe.
The National Science Foundation had said in May that dismantling the monitoring system would save $48 million in operating costs each year. But lawmakers had accused the administration of wasting the $368 million in taxpayer dollars that had funded the installation of the instruments in 2016. And the operating costs represent a tiny fraction of overall government spending.
“Dismantling the O.O.I. was supreme stupidity,” Mr. Merkley said in a statement on Thursday.
Representative Zoe Lofgren of California, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, welcomed the administration’s reversal but said she would continue fighting to save the system.
“This pathetic scheme was illegal,” Ms. Lofgren said in a statement on Thursday, adding, “My oversight team and I will be following closely what N.S.F. does next. N.S.F.’s next steps must be nothing short of replacing any of the instruments that have already been removed and ceasing all activities to de-scale until legitimate expert advice has been sought.”
Backlash had also come from overseas. After the Trump administration announced the plan to dismantle the system, the European Union said it would bolster its own observation of the world’s oceans with an investment of 92 million euros, or $107 million.
Though that move had been planned long before the U.S. retreat, officials in Brussels emphasized the contrast.
“Extremely worrying signals are coming from the other side of the Atlantic,” Costas Kadis, the European Union’s commissioner for fisheries and oceans, said at the time.
A spokesman for Mr. Kadis did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
Maxine Joselow covers climate change and the environment for The Times from Washington.
More:
Here are some “ETs” recorded from around the U.S. the last couple of days, their consequences, and some extreme temperature outlooks, as well as any extreme precipitation reports:
Here is More Climate News from Friday:
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)