Europe is breaking its reliance on American science

BRUSSELS – European governments are taking steps to break their dependence on critical scientific data the US historically made freely available to the world, and are ramping up their data collection systems to monitor climate change and weather extremes, according to Reuters interviews.

The effort – which has not been previously reported – marks the most concrete response from the European Union and other European governments so far to the US government’s retreat from scientific research under President Donald Trump’s administration.

Since his return to the White House, Mr Trump has initiated sweeping budget cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Institutes of Health, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and other agencies, dismantling programmes conducting climate, weather, geospatial and health research, and taking some public databases offline.

As those cuts take effect, European officials have expressed increasing alarm that – without continued access to US-supported weather and climate data – governments and businesses will face challenges in planning for extreme weather events and long-term infrastructure investment, according to Reuters interviews.

In March, more than a dozen European countries urged the European Commission (EC) to move fast to recruit American scientists who lose their jobs to those cuts.

Asked for comment on NOAA cuts and the EU’s moves to expand its own collection of scientific data, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said Mr Trump’s proposed cuts to the agency’s 2026 budget were aimed at programmes that spread “fake Green New Scam ‘science’” – a reference to climate change research and policy.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, the US is funding real science again,” said Ms Rachel Cauley, a spokeswoman for OMB.

European officials told Reuters that beyond the risk of losing access to data that is the bedrock of the world’s understanding of climate change and marine systems, they are concerned by the general US pullback from research.

“The current situation is much worse than we could have expected,” Sweden’s State Secretary for Education and Research Maria Nilsson said. “My reaction is, quite frankly, shock.”

The Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) described the US government data as “absolutely vital” – and said it relied on several data sets to measure, say, sea ice in the Arctic and sea surface temperatures. “This isn’t just a technical issue; reliable data underpins extreme weather warnings (and) climate projections, protecting communities, and ultimately saves lives,” said Mr Adrian Lema, director of the institute’s National Centre for Climate Research.

Reuters interviewed officials from eight European countries who said their governments were undertaking reviews of their reliance on US marine, climate and weather data. Officials from seven countries – Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden – described joint efforts now in the early stages to safeguard key health and climate data and research programmes.

Leaning on the U.S.

As a priority, the EU is expanding its access to ocean observation data, a senior EC official said. Those data sets are seen as critical to the shipping and energy industries, and early storm warning systems.

Over the next two years, the official added, the EU plans to expand its own European Marine Observation and Data Network which collects and hosts data on shipping routes, seabed habitats, marine litter and other concerns.

The initiative is aimed at “mirroring and possibly replacing US-based services”, the official said.

Europe is particularly concerned about its vulnerability to US funding cuts to NOAA’s research arm that would affect the Global Ocean Observing System that supports navigation services, shipping routes and storm forecasting, a second EU official said.

The insurance industry relies on the system’s disaster records for risk modelling. Coastal planners use shoreline, sea-level and hazard data to guide infrastructure investments. The energy industry taps oceanic and seismic data sets to assess offshore drilling or wind farm viability.

In addition, the senior EC official said the EU is considering increasing its funding of the Argo programme, a part of the Global Ocean Observing System which operates a worldwide system of floats to monitor oceans and track global warming, extreme weather events and sea-level rise.

NOAA in 2024 described the programme, in operation for over 25 years, as the “crown jewel” of ocean science. It makes its data freely available to the oil and gas industry, marine tourism and other industries.

The US funds 57 per cent of Argo’s US$40 million (S$51.8 million) annual operating expenses, and the EU funds 23 per cent. The European moves to establish independent data collection and play a bigger role in Argo represent a historic break with decades of US leadership in ocean science, said Mr Craig McLean, who retired in 2022 after four decades at the agency.

He added that US leadership of weather, climate and marine data collection was unmatched, and that through NOAA the US has paid for more than half of the world’s ocean measurements.

European scientists acknowledge the outsized role the US government has played in global scientific research and data collection – and that European countries have grown overly dependent on that work.

“It’s a bit like defence: We rely heavily on the US in that area too. They’re trailblazers and role models – but that also makes us dependent on them,” said Dr Katrin Boehning-Gaese, scientific director of Germany’s Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research.

‘Guerilla archiving’

A number of European governments are now taking measures to reduce that dependence. Nordic countries met to coordinate data storage efforts in the spring, Norwegian Minister of Research and Higher Education Sigrun Aasland said. European science ministers discussed the US science budget cuts at a meeting in Paris in May.

Ms Aasland added that Norway was setting aside US$2 million to back up and store US data to ensure stable access.

The DMI in February started downloading historical US climate data in case it was deleted by the US. It is also preparing to switch from American observations to alternatives, Ms Christina Egelund, Minister of Higher Education and Science of Denmark, said in an interview. 

Said Mr Lema: “The potentially critical issue is when new observations data stop coming in.” He added that while weather models could continue to operate without US data, the quality would suffer.

The German government has commissioned scientific organisations to review its reliance on US databases.

Since Mr Trump returned to the White House, scientists and citizens worldwide have been downloading US databases related to climate, public health or the environment that are slated for decommissioning – calling it “guerilla archiving”.

“We actually received requests – or let’s say emergency calls – from our colleagues in the US, who said, ‘We have a problem here... and we will have to abandon some data sets,’” said Mr Frank Oliver Gloeckner, head of the digital archive Pangaea, which is operated by publicly funded German research institutions.

About 800 of NOAA’s 12,000-strong workforce have been axed or taken financial incentives to resign as part of Mr Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency cuts. 

The White House 2026 budget plan seeks to shrink NOAA even further, proposing a US$1.8 billion cut, or 27 per cent of the agency’s budget, and a near-20 per cent reduction in staffing, bringing down the NOAA workforce to 10,000.

The budget proposal would eliminate the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, NOAA’s main research arm, which is responsible for ocean observatory systems including Argo, coastal observing networks, satellite sensors and climate model labs.

It is also reducing its data products. Between April and June, NOAA announced on its website the decommissioning of 20 data sets or products related to earthquakes and marine science.

Mr Gloeckner said there were no legal hurdles to storing the US government data as it was already in the public domain.

But without significant funds and infrastructure, there are limits to what private scientists can save, said Ms Denice Ross, a senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists, a non-profit science policy group, and the US government’s chief data officer during Mr Joe Biden’s administration.

Databases need regular updating – which requires the funding and infrastructure that only governments can provide, she noted.

Over the last few months, the federation and EU officials have held talks with European researchers, US philanthropies and health and environment advocacy groups to discuss how to prioritise what data to save.  

“There is an opportunity for other nations and institutions and philanthropies to fill in the gaps if US quality starts to falter,” she said. REUTERS