Trump’s deprioritization of climate research
In early April, the Trump administration suspended hundreds of millions of dollars in research grants to Princeton University. In the following days, many were preemptively ended — including $4 million in grants for climate and earth science research. From the corner of southwest Colorado, 2,000 miles away from both Princeton, NJ and Washington, D.C., these casualties in the ongoing battle between universities and the administration can seem inconsequential to our day-to-day life. But the rhetoric used to cancel Princeton’s climate science grants shows that the Trump administration has no regard for the serious threat that climate change poses to our corner of America.
In an April 8 press release, the administration stated that a project focused on climate-driven variability and predictability of water “suggests that the Earth will have a significant fluctuation in its water availability as a result of global warming.” They further claim that “using federal funds to perpetuate these narratives does not align with the priorities of this Administration and such time and resources can be better utilized elsewhere.”
As anyone living in southwest Colorado knows, “significant fluctuation of water availability” is an undeniable reality — not a narrative. The climate of the American Southwest is naturally variable due to complex, large-scale atmospheric patterns as well as major elevation and terrain differences. The historical record shows long megadroughts, major floods and significant changes in annual precipitation have occurred here for thousands of years. In recent memory, the winter of 2017-2018 was one of the driest on record, plunging southwest Colorado into an exceptional drought that culminated in the 416 Fire. During the winter of 2018-2019, in contrast, a major storm cycle dumped feet of snow and caused historically large avalanches. Scientists describe these large, abrupt transitions between very dry and very wet conditions as “hydroclimate whiplash.”
And hydroclimate whiplash is increasing as a result of climate change. Warmer temperatures, driven by rising greenhouse gas concentrations, cause wet periods to get wetter and dry periods to get drier. From a thermodynamic perspective, this is because warmer air can hold more water vapor. So the atmosphere draws more water from the land and the ocean, drying the land during already dry periods and filling the air with more water that falls as precipitation during wet periods. Imagine the atmosphere as a sponge. A warmer atmosphere is a bigger sponge: it can soak up and release more water than a smaller, cooler sponge.
Empirical measurements back up these theoretical relationships: Since the mid-1900s, metrics measuring hydroclimate whiplash have increased significantly. It’s likely that the whiplash experienced in southwest Colorado from 2017-2019 was amplified by climate change. During the winter of 2017-2018, warm temperatures dried soils and vegetation. In combination with a low snowpack, which reduced the amount of water replenished by snowmelt, this created ideal conditions for ignition ahead of the 416 Fire. During the winter of 2018-2019, the March storm cycle was driven by an atmospheric river, which carried moisture inland from the Pacific Ocean and intensified an existing weather system. In a warming climate, atmospheric rivers carry more water, increasing their frequency and intensity.
The Trump administration’s refusal to fund research that investigates hydroclimate whiplash, predictability and water availability is avoidant at best and deeply dangerous at worst. Thermodynamic fundamentals, future model simulations and historical measurements all agree: Hydroclimate whiplash is increasing and will impact water availability, especially in naturally variable locations like the western U.S. Refusing to fund hydroclimate research will not change this. Instead, it will hinder our ability to understand, anticipate and address the impacts of these changes on infrastructure, water availability and society.
If the Trump administration is cutting this project because it is truly not a priority for them, we in southwest Colorado need to understand exactly what this deprioritization means. The administration will not be able to predict how water availability, extreme precipitation, or drought will change over the next century. They will not adapt federal water infrastructure to the simultaneously increasing drought and flood risk. They will not design roads and structures to withstand historically large floods, avalanches, or mudslides. They will not provide subsidized water to farmers, ranchers, or ordinary people whose taps are running dry in a drought. They will not pay firefighters to fight increasingly large blazes. They will not build systems resilient to the environmental changes that we already feel in the western U.S.
Though the East Coast is thousands of miles and several inches of annual precipitation distant from us, we must pay attention to the Trump administration’s attacks on science and what those attacks say about their priorities. By cancelling $4 million in climate and water research, the administration has indicated that they do not care about the impacts of climate change on southwest Coloradans — or any Americans.
Madeleine Burns grew up in Durango and recently graduated from Princeton, where she studied environmental engineering with a focus on hydrology. She currently lives in Telluride and works on climate change analyses of national parks.