Indian scientists and policymakers have expressed concern over job cuts at the United States’ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, warning that reduced climate observations could affect monsoon forecasts and cyclone tracking in India, PTI reported.

Hundreds of employees at the US climate agency, including meteorologists responsible for local forecasts, were dismissed last week. The job cuts were part of efforts by the Donald Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency to slash the US federal workforce.

“We are worried,” M Ravichandran, secretary at the Union Ministry of Earth Sciences, told PTI. “If NOAA reduces observations, there will be implications on weather forecasts. When ocean observations reduce, there is less data to assimilate. Hence predictability will reduce.”

Climate scientist Roxy Mathew Koll of the Indian Institute for Tropical Meteorology described the layoffs as a global crisis that could impact climate science.

“For India, the monsoon forecasts, cyclone tracking and climate projections rely on NOAA’s models,” PTI quoted Koll, who is also an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report author, as saying. “Half of the Indian Ocean’s observational network is backed by NOAA. Without this backbone, early warnings for floods, heatwaves, and storms will weaken, putting millions at risk.”

Koll, a recipient of the Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar, said that the layoffs at NOAA were “more than a budget cut”.

“It is a direct threat to climate resilience, research and preparedness worldwide,” Koll told the news agency. “The world cannot afford to lose NOAA.”

NOAA provides data and models essential for weather and climate monitoring, forecasting and disaster preparedness globally. India operates ocean observation instruments such as Argo floats, moored buoys and drifting buoys, but NOAA also deploys similar systems in the Indian Ocean and beyond.

“Collaboration is key to science – and particularly climate research and action,” Koll said. “Monitoring across global oceans is essential to predict India's weather and climate, but no single country can do it alone.”