Trump Scraps Ocean Sensors Providing Crucial Flooding Data (1)

The Trump administration’s decision to dismantle most of a $386 million federal ocean-observing network will leave scientists without an irreplaceable source of data used to understand how climate change is affecting crucial currents and marine ecosystems and increasing coastal flooding.

“No other system has the comprehensiveness,” said Craig McLean, the former acting chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and now a senior fellow at the Ocean Foundation. Other monitoring networks provide valuable information but represent only “bits and pieces,” he said, of what is collectively measured.

The network of sensors, moorings and autonomous instruments known as the Ocean Observatories Initiative will be ...