Alaska scientists say future of Arctic research is uncertain after federal funding cuts

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Alaska scientists shared concerns about federal funding cuts hurting Arctic research at a major conference in New Orleans this month.

The American Geophysical Union conference, which ran from Dec. 15 to 19, brought together Earth and space scientists from more than a hundred countries, including researchers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Larry Hinzman, a University of Alaska President’s Arctic Professor who formerly served in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, spoke at the conference panel about navigating the future of Arctic research. The panel was hosted by the University of Alaska Fairbanks and an Utqiagvik research company, UIC Science, which is also a subsidiary of the Ukpeaġvik Iñupiat Corporation.

“We’re going through a pretty traumatic time right now,” Hinzman said. “There is tremendous cuts to really important programs that are important to enable scientific research, to let us do a lot of the work that needs to be done. And this work is not just important to us, but it’s important to society in general.”

Hinzman coauthored a research paper earlier this month with John Walsh, another UAF scientist focusing on climate, which looks at the effects of terminated federal observational programs. He spent time detailing their findings to attendees at the conference.

“The environmental observations affect every part of life,” he said. “They affect food storage, sustainable resources.”

Federal science agencies like the National Weather Service were an early target of the Trump administration’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, though the government later worked to rehire some staff. The administration has also called for deeper budget cuts to other agencies that perform climate research.

During the panel, Hinzman pointed to funding cuts for the seismic network that is important for understanding earthquakes and tsunamis.

“Our society, our culture, our nation needs to stop the bleeding, and we need to save what remains, and we need to rebuild what we’ve already lost,” he said.

In the paper, Hinzman and Walsh said that observation programs are also important for storm forecasts, and that funding cuts led to the elimination of weather balloons that measure atmospheric conditions months before ex-typhoon Halong hit Western Alaska.

The authors said the data gaps compounded on top of the National Weather Service staffing shortages, and the accuracy of forecasting decreased in September 2025 compared to a year earlier.

“With Arctic coastlines becoming increasingly vulnerable to storms as the open water season lengthens, and as the observational network degrades, the economic and societal benefits of forecast-based warnings of Arctic storms are becoming increasingly apparent,” Hinzman and Walsh said in the paper.

During the conference, Hinzman said that despite the recent challenges, he believes polar research will get stronger again.

“I do believe that the golden era of polar research is behind us, but it’s also in front of us,” he said. “At this point, it takes contributions for every one of us to make our society acknowledge, realize and understand the importance of this work and continue it.”

International research

The panel also touched on how the current geopolitical landscape is putting a strain on some international scientific collaborations.

Hinzman said that some Canadian researchers are hesitant about working with the U.S. right now, and Canadian universities are among the educational organizations inviting American scientists to join their staff.

“That’s a real loss for us,” Hinzman said. “It’s a terrible brain drain for us, but I would much rather see that these young researchers find jobs and stay in science, rather than stay in the country and take work that’s not related to science.”

Robert McCoy is the director of UAF’s Geophysical Institute, and said that while the relationship with Canada is difficult now, there might be opportunities for more scientific collaboration through the defense programs.

McCoy also said that joint research with Russia has stalled in recent years, after the start of the war in Ukraine.

In the past, Alaska scientists worked closely with Russian experts on permafrost, earthquakes and volcanoes, McCoy said. In fact, he said that just before Russia invaded Ukraine, Russian scientists approached researchers in Alaska about massive holes in the permafrost in Siberia. McCoy said American scientists were familiar with the phenomenon and thought it was likely caused by explosions of methane gas built up in the permafrost.

But collaborations between the scientists have since stopped, McCoy said.

“That all came to a screeching halt,” he said.

On the other hand, several speakers pointed out that research relationships with Greenland and Denmark have been on the rise.

“We’ve got wonderful international partners,” Hinzman said. “We just need to get that, to revive that.”

Collaborations with tribes

The panelists also highlighted the importance of collaboration with Indigenous communities in Alaska’s Arctic.

Researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks have been partnering more and more with Alaska tribal communities, taking into account the local knowledge about things like sea ice and erosion, and focusing their research on questions relevant to residents, said Laura Conner, the interim vice chancellor for research at UAF.

“We want to go out and do scientific investigations of things that are happening on the ground,” she said. “There are people that are living all over the state that have a lot of knowledge already, and so when you bring those two bodies of knowledge together, they’re much stronger.”

Serina Wesen, the outreach engagement manager at Utqiagvik’s UIC Science, said that Alaskans in the Arctic are feeling the environmental changes every day, through their subsistence practices and the weather.

“This is affecting people’s livelihoods and kind of yearly ways of life, even just down to kind of gathering food,” she said.

Wesen said that UIC Science researchers have been connecting with Utqiagvik elders who hope to engage with youth about the changes in their community, and ways that science can help them better understand those shifts.

“I think that there’s a way to kind of bring everything together in order to have good hopes and change for the future,” Wesen said.

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