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Accurate weather forecasting is critical for the safety of Alaskan fishermen and aviators.

And recent cuts to the National Weather Service here is causing alarm.

You're going to have fewer people, working.

More.

It's going to be, you know, you're going to have burnout.

You're going to have stuff be missed.

How will the reduction affect weather and climate science in Alaska?

We'll learn more right now on Alaska.

Insight.

Good evening.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, is the parent organization for the National Weather Service or NWS The NWS provides a wide range of critical weather and climate related services that help us make simple preparations for local weather.

Do we need a light jacket or a parka today?

And those forecasts are critical for safety in Alaska and can make the difference between life and death for aviators, fishermen and people traveling across Alaska's vast terrain and bodies of water.

Tonight, we'll hear from two Alaska experts who rely on the science provided through NOAA and NWS and what they are concerned will be lost because of federal job cuts and resignations.

Before we get to that discussion, here are some of the top stories of the week from Alaska Public Media's collaborative statewide news network.

Jessie Holmes raced into Nome early Friday morning, earning his first Iditarod win and finishing the longest trail in the race's history.

The 43 year old musher and his team of ten dogs ran under the arch just before 3 a.m..

This was Holmes eighth Iditarod race.

He's placed in the top ten nearly every year and won rookie of the year in 2018.

He notched his victory in ten days, 14 hours and 55 minutes, the longest time it's taken a winner in more than two decades.

Because of scarce snow in south central Alaska.

The race started in Fairbanks this year, which added around 100 miles to the length.

Hours after Holmes finished, mushers Matt Hall and Paige Romney raced into Nome, winning second and third place, respectively.

The Alaska House of Representatives narrowly approved a bill on Wednesday that would substantially increase funding for public schools on a long term basis.

For nearly the first time in a decade.

The bill now moves to the Senate.

The legislation, House Bill 69, would raise the state's basic per student funding formula by $1,000.

Lawmakers estimate it would increase public education spending by roughly $275 million next school year.

The increase in funding is significantly smaller than the original draft of the bill.

That funding level was lowered and policy changes, including targeted funding to support governor Mike Dunleavy.

Alaska.

Reid's act, were added following negotiations with the governor's office.

Dunleavy vetoed a similar bill last session because it did not include policy changes he wanted.

Prior to its passage, the governor called the policy changes in the current bill solid movement, but stopped short of fully endorsing it.

His spokesperson did not return a request for comment after the bill's passage.

The likelihood that spur will explosively erupt in the near future has increased, according to researchers.

The volcano, located about 80 miles west of acreage, has been showing increased gas emissions following months of small earthquakes that started in the spring of 2024.

Officials at the Alaska Volcano Observatory say these signs indicate an eruption is likely, but not certain, to occur within the next few weeks or months.

An explosive eruption could last as long as a few hours and produce ash clouds carried for hundreds of miles.

You can find the full version of these and many more stories on our website.

Alaska public.org or download the Alaska Public Media app on your phone.

Now on to our discussion for this evening.

How layoffs and resignations at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, could affect Alaska.

NOAA is a massive federal agency that carries out a wide variety of missions through its various national organizations like the National Weather Service, as well as partner organizations around the world.

Weather forecasts, climate change research, and the tsunami warning system across the planet are connected with NOAA facilities and scientists.

NOAA is also responsible for monitoring and managing many of Alaska's fisheries.

Alaska Public Media reached out to NOAA's Washington, D.C. headquarters, the National Weather Service, and NOAA Fisheries Alaska Region requesting information about how many staff members have resigned or been laid off since January, but all declined to provide any data, citing policy against publicly discussing personnel and management issues, and directed any questions along those lines to the Department of Commerce, which oversees NOAA.

As of Friday afternoon, we have not received a response from the department.

Unions representing groups within NOAA offer a glimpse at what is happening, according to the executive vice president of the National Weather Service Employees Organization.

Roughly 10% of the NWS Alaska branch has resigned or been fired, while the president of the labor union that represents many of Alaska fisheries employees says at least 5% of the Alaska staff was fired, but that only includes union members.

These layoffs primarily targeted probationary staff, mostly employees with under a year in their department, though some of those employees may have come from another department or the private sector with many years of previous experience.

The union representative also noted that some very experienced senior staff around the state accepted the Trump administration's fork in the road resignation offer.

Joining me tonight to discuss their concerns about the massive job cuts within NOAA and the National Weather Service is Rick Tollman.

Rick worked at AWS for decades, and he is now a climate specialist at the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy at the International Arctic Research Center at UAF.

And Jamie O'Connor is the deputy executive director of the Alaska marine Conservation Council.

Jamie also fishes commercially.

Welcome, both of you.

Thanks so much for being here.

Thank you Laura.

Thanks for it.

So, Rick, I want to start with you.

I want to look at the various services within Alaska's National Weather Service individually.

But in general, what have you observed about how this 10% reduction, whether through resignation or firing, is or could affect service overall?

And then we'll drill down a little bit from there.

Well, obviously staff of around 200 people to lose 10% of that is obviously significant.

But it's even more significant when you realize Weather Service Alaska region has been, for many parts of the organization, short staffed for years.

So it's not like you had fully staffed offices that have lost 10%.

In some cases, you had seriously understaffed offices that have now lost more.

So this is really a compounding, a well known preexisting problem.

There are forecast offices in Juneau, Anchorage and Fairbanks.

They've been in place for nearly 50 years.

How might these services change or be affected now?

Well, I think one of the things that Alaskans need to keep in mind is that we have three forecast offices for a state the size of Alaska, the same land area in the lower 48 would have 2530 forecast offices.

And the staffing levels, the number of people to assigned the same in Fairbanks, about the same in Anchorage as it is in Duluth or La Crosse or Bismarck.

And so we have far fewer people covering this huge area, offices that have been understaffed, and now there's even less people.

And importantly, I can't stress this enough.

Some of the folks that have left decades of experience have walked out the door.

And because Alaska is so, so different than the lower 48, to lose that experience is really a serious gut punch to the services that can be provided with that expertise.

Rick, as we noted earlier, you are with the National Weather Service for 30 years through many different administrations.

Have you ever experienced anything this disruptive in the past before?

Certainly nothing like this.

Certainly went through, some of those government shutdowns.

Of course, meteorologists, in the National Weather Service are, those, those, essential employees.

So we went to work, and we didn't know if we would get paid or when we would get paid.

And so we've been through disruptions and uncertainty, but nothing like this.

All right.

Thank you for getting us started, Jamie.

Turning to you now.

Thanks for your patience.

The Alaska marine Conservation Council is composed of fishermen and others who want to make sure fisheries are sustainable into the future.

It's been in place for 30 years.

The council works with the North Pacific Fishery Management Console, which NOAA staff facilitates.

Describe that relationship as both deputy director of the council and also as someone who fishes commercially.

Yeah.

So I think, folks are familiar with our Board of Fisheries process here in Alaska for state level fisheries.

So the North Pacific Council is basically that for the federal waters.

So that's three miles out to 200 year.

You're crabbers you're halibut fisherman black cod or sable fish.

So yeah.

So it allows us to have our public process and access our fisheries regulators and the people making decisions about our fisheries.

And so the Alaska marine Conservation Council has worked for 30 years in those processes, Board of Fish, North Pacific Council and in our communities to try and assist these bodies to understand and the needs of fishing communities and fishermen, and really advocate for strong, science based, sustainable management of our resources.

You got some news last night that, we know that there's been some judges who have, pushed back against the firings and said that either put a pause on them or said you have to go through a different process that didn't include the Department of Commerce that oversees now or until a decision that you saw last night.

Yeah.

So there were two decisions that came out yesterday.

One, from a judge in, I believe, California and Judge Breyer's decision out of Maryland did include the Department of Commerce under which NOAA is housed.

So, while it would be great if the probationary employees in here in Alaska who work on fisheries were able to go back to work, we are still a little unclear on what this means for their future, and we'll be monitoring that closely.

In a previous interview, you talked about the the councils that were set up under the Magnuson Stevens Act in the 1970s.

Talk about the importance of NOAA staff in helping the council with research for decision making, about, about the quotas.

Absolutely.

So NOAA has some foundational responsibility to Alaska's fisheries, and that includes everything from temperature monitoring to stock assessment surveys that allow us to set catch limits.

So really, everything from, you know, a lab tech taking a temperature sample to the lab that's feeding information into a fisheries management model, to the managers making those decisions.

It all ties back to the people who are out on the water.

Actually harvesting our seafood.

And so it it may be, maybe folks are less aware that Alaska's largest private sector employer is commercial fisheries and that we are by and by, in a way, our largest sector of food producers as well.

And so NOAA is really that foundational agency for us to be able to do our jobs, everything from issuing permits like AFK for halibut, sable fish I have crab individual fishing quota.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah.

So anything from issuing your permits to assessing the stock to providing the information needed to make management decisions on how much fish we can responsibly take.

So really, for Alaska's fishermen, we can't legally or sustainably responsibly do our jobs unless NOAA is also doing theirs.

So it's it's very inter intertwined even though the the relationship is a bit tense at times.

Oh yes yes yes oh yes.

Much needed.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Rick.

Spring River breakup forecasting is obviously very important.

That's going to start soon.

There is a river forecast center that NWS staffs provides hydrologic forecasts for, not just Alaska, but also Hawaii.

I was surprised by that.

And the Pacific Islands describe the importance of this forecasting service and what might change now.

Well, the with breakup coming, which of course is of extreme importance for Alaska as part of the season around and of course during some years, maybe most years somewhere there is significant flooding during break up ice jam, flooding or snowmelt flooding.

And the Alaska Pacific River Forecast Center, in conjunction with the state has for decades now, ran this River watch program where hydrologists are flying with, state Department of Homeland Security and local experts.

Often elders will go up in the plane with them.

They know where the ice jams form.

They know what's usual, they know what's not.

Well, what will the weather service, River Forecast Center be able to do that this year?

We don't know.

But we know breakups going to happen.

We know it's very likely there's going to be flooding somewhere.

And without those eyes in the air, that experience to know what's typical, know what's threatening that is going to potentially seriously impact the kinds of warnings that the weather service will be able to provide to communities on the Yukon on the cusp of when, the Trump administration has talked about privatizing many, many of government services, including weather forecasting and, other services that no provides.

What are your thoughts about that idea?

I think that it was you, Rick, that said that the cost of forecasting now is about $4 per American per year.

That's roughly the roughly the budget, you know, divided by the population kind of thing.

I guess my response to the idea of privatization is there's been private weather forecasters forecasting companies for decades.

My very first job after I graduated from college.

So it was with a private forecasting company in the 1980s.

And so this has been a possibility, but we don't see it in Alaska for a very good reason.

Right.

Private company.

What's what are they trying to do?

They're trying to make money.

Alaska has a small population.

It's dispersed over a huge area.

What's the economic potential for that?

If it was there, we would see private companies doing it.

Because private companies have been around for a long time that that.

So I think that for Alaska at least, is, you know, we have evidence that this is not likely to work in aviation weather for the entire state, as we know, is very important within knowing nationally, there's been nearly 900 positions, 880 that have been cut or have resigned.

When you think about the overall system, what could that mean for aviation forecasting?

Well, certainly with aviation, but also, on the water.

One of my big concerns is, of course, that some of the folks that have been fired or or have resigned are, electronics maintenance people.

All of these automated weather observations at airports, buoys, tide gauges, upper air systems, these are all high tech systems and they require significant maintenance.

And we are all aware of of the importance of these observations, especially in light of the Bering air crash outside of Nome and and we have known for a long time, and our congressional representatives are aware of it and are working it, that the the frequency and the quality of these observations has been declining.

These aviation observations have been declining around the state and not having fewer people to maintain these systems that are already expensive, to get too expensive to maintain cannot possibly help the safety factor of for aviation or for mariners.

And Jamie turning to fishermen, as Rick noted, need just like pilots need accurate weather forecasting to keep them safe.

What are you hearing from other fishermen about concerns going into spring fishing now?

Yeah, I mean, we have pretty strong concerns about safety at sea.

So some of these cuts not only impact the weather forecasting that we rely on, but also, NOAA helps out with some navigational aids as well as some emergency coordination if needed.

So there's there's quite a bit that goes into the decision making before you even leave the harbor.

And a lot of that could be impacted by these cuts.

And we'll be watching that carefully.

You talked a little about harvest levels earlier, but in a previous interview you said no fisherman wants to catch the last fish.

No.

I fully support that.

We don't want to see that happen.

So the critical nature of those forecasts and and also the, the trawl surveys, what do you see what could replace that if that goes away to help set those harvest letters levels in a sustainable way.

You know, I, I hesitate to even imagine at this point what it would take to replace those data sets.

I think it's it's critical that they move forward.

And as you mentioned, our relationship with NOAA has been 30 years of encouraging them to improve how they do things and better understand their fishermen and fishing communities.

And that includes improving things like their modeling and the way that they conduct their surveys.

But I think where I would hazard a guess, the whole industry can agree is that those surveys have to go forward, and they're critical for any of us to do our jobs in a sustainable, responsible way.

Also, continuity of that work is, very, very important.

Rick.

Annual sea ice measurements and the research that goes on in the Arctic is the continuity of that at risk.

Now?

I would like to say no, but I don't think that would be a responsible thing to say.

Things like sea ice are mostly measured by satellites these days, but a lot of the funding to process that information and make it available, if not done by no directly, is done through NOAA contracts.

And so I think all of this, given what we've seen in the last, six weeks, all of this is potentially at risk because the because NOAA and the federal government, NASA as well, providing so much of this remote sense data and it is so foundational, as you put to this, to this endeavor, doesn't get a lot of press, but without it, it's all going to fall apart.

You made a point in an earlier interview, Rick, about missing information.

People, you noted that people will still get weather information on their phone or computer, but the quality and accuracy of that information will be different.

Currently, I see sometimes what I consider a somewhat humorous forecast of rain will start in 12 minutes, or snow will end in 20 minutes.

I'm like, okay, well, that's really dialed in.

But, I assume that level of detail, whether it's silly or not, will be lost.

And that's minor compared to aviation and Mariner needs.

How could forecasts be different going forward, even for average people who are just wondering about whether they need a coat?

Well, I think the the, the big impact is going to be felt over the long term that your apps are going to keep being populated with data.

If the federal government decided we are going to stop doing weather models.

Weather models are run all around the world.

Those are publicly available.

So your app will continue to to have data.

But how good are those forecasts going to be?

Yes, it's easy to to comparatively easy to to write code that yes rain will start in 12 minutes, but how good is that?

With with out with less information getting into those models, things like weather balloon, observations the forecast will still be there, but the quality over time can go nowhere but down.

Jamie, one of the things that you noted are whenever jobs are lost, there's a ripple effect in local communities.

What are you hearing about NOAA job losses in coastal communities and how that's hitting the local economy?

Yeah.

So I mean, I hesitate to call anyone out individually, but, there were two individuals who were let go from NOAA who testified to House judiciary down in Juneau on Wednesday.

And they gave very powerful testimony, both of whom were homegrown Alaskans who had done their fisheries management training.

Grad programs through the UAF program up in Fairbanks and Alaska, has been doing a lot of work over the last several decades to expand our bench of homegrown fisheries managers and researchers and people who really care about Alaska's oceans and our communities.

And and it's working.

We've got some really sharp, homegrown folks.

And so I, I really hope that these people are able to stay and keep their talent and expertise here in Alaska.

I do think that these cuts make that harder.

And I also, in my personal experience, the folks who live in community and work for NOAA are caring, engaged, curious people.

I mean, I've never met a scientist who does it for the money.

So I do think that there are both social and economic impacts.

And I would say that those can become, a little more marked in especially small communities where the types of roles that people are able to fill are part of a kind of complex constellation of family income that allow them to live and work in their chosen communities.

There was some very powerful testimony at that same hearing, from a gentleman who worked in the Park Service and was able to live in Port Ellsworth because of his federal work and do important work there.

Well, thank you both so much for being here this evening as time went by.

Way too fast.

But thank you for the work you're doing on behalf of all of us.

Thank you Lori.

Weather and a changing climate affects us all.

For some of us, snowing.

If we need a raincoat before we go out, maybe enough on a day to day basis.

But for aviators, fishermen, and Alaskans traveling in remote parts of the state, accurate weather data is critical for safety and long term climate science collection helps improve forecasting accuracy in the future, so we can better prepare in advance before the next big storm, wildfire or other weather related disaster strikes.

That's it for this edition of Alaska Insight, visit our website.

Alaska public.org for breaking news and reports from our partner stations across the state.

While you're there, sign up for our free daily digest so you won't miss any of Alaska's top stories of the day.

Thanks for joining us this evening.

I'm Lori Townsend.

Tonight.