...Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, said on X: “Fossil fuel is heating our oceans by the zettajoule, so Trump’s corrupt fossil fuel stooges want to turn off the monitors."...

The dismantling of the OOI marks another step in the Trump administration’s rollback of science and climate initiatives. It also follows Trump’s push to expand deep-sea mining and loosen fishing regulations, a policy that has alarmed ocean scientists and climate experts....

Data from the OOI has also contributed to research on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a critical system of Atlantic Ocean currents that studies suggest may be more vulnerable to collapse than previously thought, with potentially severe consequences for the global climate...

“In a statement to the Guardian, NSF head of media affairs Mike England said the program was not being cancelled entirely: “The NSF is not cancelling the Ocean Observatories Initiative. The decision to descope aligns with NSF’s wider strategy of a nimbler approach to prioritize support for evolving scientific priorities and emerging technologies, as well as smart lifecycle management within its research infrastructure portfolio.”

The Guardian is the source for this post.