In one of the highest-profile battles yet between the US research community and the administration of President Donald Trump, lawyers faced off in a Colorado courthouse yesterday over the future of a research centre that has been called the global 'mothership' of climate science. Under Trump, the US government has said that it will take steps to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, alleging that it promotes climate alarmism. The organization that manages NCAR ' a coalition of around 130 universities called the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) ' sued the government in March to stop NCAR's break-up. Researchers say that NCAR is a crucial global resource whose models underpin much of modern atmospheric science, including artificial-intelligence studies1 aimed at decoding and predicting extreme weather. 'Losing NCAR would mean losing decades of institutional knowledge, something that cannot be plugged back in two or...
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