The Great Mauna Loa Meltdown: NOAA’s Hilo Office Faces the Chop, and the Sky Is Falling (Apparently)

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The Great Mauna Loa Meltdown: NOAA’s Hilo Office Faces the Chop, and the Sky Is Falling (Apparently)

18 hours ago Charles Rotter 

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/14/climate/noaa-lease-mauna-loa.html
Oh, the humanity! The New York Times has unearthed a scandal of apocalyptic proportions: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) might shutter its office in Hilo, Hawaii, which oversees the Mauna Loa Observatory. Yes, that Mauna Loa—the one with the fancy Keeling Curve that’s been tracking carbon dioxide like a stalker since 1958. According to the Times’ breathless prose, this could spell doom for “global scientific research.” Cue the violins.

The story, scraped from an internal federal document like it’s some kind of Wikileaks drop, warns that the Hilo office could close as early as August. Why? Because Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has proposed slashing 793 federal leases to save a measly $500 million. That’s less than 0.1% of the 2025 defense budget, the article tut-tuts, as if every penny of government bloat is a sacred cow. Never mind that these offices might be ghost towns, abandoned by remote-working bureaucrats who’d rather Zoom from their lanais than clock in. Nope, it’s a crisis, because reasons.

The Times wrings its hands over the observatory’s fate, but here’s the kicker: there’s zero evidence Mauna Loa’s CO2 monitors will stop humming. No one’s saying the instruments get unplugged—just that the Hilo office, one of 30 NOAA buildings on DOGE’s hit list, might not be needed. Maybe the data can be managed from, say, a server in Colorado? Or a laptop in someone’s basement? But no, we’re told this is a “pole star of global scientific research,” and without that Hilo lease, the planet’s “eyes” will be gouged out. Ralph Keeling, son of the curve’s namesake, calls it “vital baseline data.” Sure, Ralph, but vital to what? Endless climate conferences and glossy charts?

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/03/15/the-great-mauna-loa-meltdown-noaas-hilo-office-faces-the-chop-and-the-sky-is-falling-apparently/