Weather agency websites set to vanish with contract cuts

(Bloomberg) --The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency is poised to eliminate most websites tied to its research division under plans for the cancellation of a cloud web services contract, a move that could snarl operations at several labs.

A contract for the services across NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research — known as NOAA Research — has been targeted for "early termination," according to internal documents seen by Bloomberg News. As a result, almost all external websites reliant on Amazon, Google and WordPress services are poised to vanish early Saturday morning in Washington, wiping the bulk of the unit's work, which includes climate and environmental science research, from public view.

NOAA didn't respond to requests for comment.

This would mark yet another blow to public communications from NOAA, the scientific research and regulatory agency best known for providing daily weather forecasts through its National Weather Service. This week, a translation service contract that allowed the agency to provide forecasts in Spanish and other languages lapsed without a replacement lined up.

Like other federal agencies, NOAA — which is under the Commerce Department — is grappling with the Trump administration's edict to cut its workforce and costs. It's also facing the prospect, pushed by conservatives, of being dismantled and its responsibilities distributed among other agencies.

Read More: Commercial Forecasters Warn Against NOAA Breakup

Some scientists have begun cataloguing website content before it disappears, said Katy Croff Bell, president and founder of the nonprofit Ocean Discovery League, which has received funding from NOAA Research in the past. She has been saving documents and presentations related to ocean exploration.

"Those are all public resources," Bell said in an interview Friday. "They have been collected with taxpayer money. It should be available. It should be out there. It should not be deleted."

A termination of the cloud web services contract may also affect some operations at several labs housed within the research division, according to an internal memo, including the National Severe Storms Laboratory and the Earth Prediction Innovation Center, which uses cloud services to support a broad-based weather forecasting system.

Separately, NOAA is nearing the end of two short-term extensions to support N-Wave, the agency's internet and national network service provider. N-Wave, which is known internally as "NOAA's Network," transports the agency's forecasting data, connecting supercomputing facilities and data centers.

A five-day extension of engineering and technical support services is set to lapse on Saturday, according to an internal email that warns of "significant service disruptions" when the agreement expires. A separate five-day order to provide engineering support for N-Wave's "campus services," including local networks, Wi-Fi and security firewalls at NOAA facilities, is slated to expire on Monday.