As the White House shuts down federal efforts to track climate change impacts, Hawaiʻi has recently ramped up its own initiatives to keep that record going at the local level, largely through a network of new weather stations and experts.

But that network, which has taken years to build, could also be on the chopping block. It is almost entirely dependent on federal grant dollars that have either been paused or are poised to disappear entirely, Hawaiʻi researchers say.

“The nightmare is all this work goes away and we lose all that effort,” University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa geography professor Tom Giambelluca said of the detailed weather mapping and monitoring taking place across the islands’ wide range of environments. “I don’t think there’s anything like this in the country.”

Much of that data is updated within minutes, and the public can see it on the Hawaiʻi Climate Data Portal. The National Weather Service also uses the local data during extreme events to warn against potential flooding and wildfires, Giambelluca said.

He fears the dozens of weather stations that dot Hawaiʻi’s rugged landscape will turn to “e-waste.”

Giambelluca’s comments come as the Trump administration has stopped updating several key data-monitoring programs run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that measure everything from the intensity of hurricanes to the cost of disasters. 

“The nightmare is all this work goes away and we lose all that effort.”

Tom Giambelluca, University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa geography professor

On Thursday, NOAA announced it will no longer keep a running list of the nation’s costliest climate-related events under the Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters program. Past disasters through 2024, plus their mounting economic and human toll, can still be found on the program’s website. 

For Hawaiʻi, this includes Hurricane ʻIniki in 1992, which killed seven people and caused about $6.9 billion in damage, making it the costliest and deadliest hurricane to hit the state in nearly a century. The database also lists the August 2023 wildfire in Lahaina, which caused about $5.7 billion in damage and killed 102 people.

Cuts to NOAA and other programs would severely undermine researchers’ ability to run climate models that are the backbone of preparedness and resilience efforts. But as the state ramps up its programs intended to shore up and expand local climate information gathering, even those are in jeopardy.

A Live View

Over the past several years, researchers have installed 67 weather towers across Hawai‘i’s varied landscape to collect data on rainfall, humidity, wind speed, solar radiation, soil temperature and other climate and weather data.

Those monitoring stations form what’s known as the Hawai‘i Mesonet system. There are plans to install 100 towers to provide researchers with crucial information to inform weather forecasting, water resource management, natural disaster warnings and more. An online dashboard where the public can view the real-time data from each tower just launched Wednesday.

In Hawaiʻi, those datasets “are things that touch everybody,” said Ryan Longman, a program director with the Pacific Islands Climate Adaptation Science Center, one of nine such centers run by the U.S. Geological Survey. 

Average rainfall in Hawaiʻi can range from less than 10 inches a year to more than 400 inches depending on the location. Because weather and climate patterns can be drastically different even just a few miles away, researchers want a dense network of towers to get an accurate statewide picture.

With that wide range of climates, Longman said, “we need a huge network.”

“The future was really bright six months ago in terms of where we were headed.”

Ryan Longman, program director with the Pacific Islands Climate Adaptation Science Center

But the project, which has been in the works for decades, faces an uncertain future.

Operating and maintaining Hawaiʻi’s Mesonet stations and managing the data cost about $600,000 a year, Giambelluca said, nearly half of which comes from NOAA’s National Mesonet program. 

Grants and UH dollars have largely covered the remainder of those operating costs, he said, and the program still doesn’t have a dedicated, sustainable funding source. Last year, state leaders approved some $125,000 toward the cause, but that money has yet to be released.

He suggested that the best way to fund local Mesonet operations would be to boost the Commission on Water Resource Management’s budget, so that the group could help run the program.

“We need to find a way to keep these going,” Longman said.

Another problem is the recent freeze of a five-year, $20 million National Science Foundation grant that’s funding the towers’ installation as well as the salaries of staff helping to run the equipment and the online dashboard.

Longman said the local climate adaptation science center he works for, as well as its larger network, is also at serious risk of closing under additional cuts proposed by Trump.

“Watching this is incredible,” he said of the federal assault on climate change research. “There are people losing their jobs. Datasets are going away. Funding is not being paid.”

“The future was really bright six months ago in terms of where we were headed,” Longman said.

Now, he said, it’s largely focused on survival.

Civil Beat’s coverage of climate change is supported by The Healy Foundation, Marisla Fund of the Hawai‘i Community Foundation and the Frost Family Foundation.