A federal judge on Monday issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Trump administration from seizing a supercomputer from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, delivering a sharp rebuke to the White House's campaign against what it calls "climate alarmism."
Judge R. Brooke Jackson, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, ruled that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) failed to provide any rationale for the proposed transfer of NCAR's supercomputer to another operator. The ruling halts the administration's effort to break up the lab, which OMB Director Russell Vought had targeted late last year as a source of "climate alarmism."
NCAR, managed by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), a consortium of 129 universities, conducts critical research on climate change, severe weather prediction, flood modeling, air quality, and solar impacts on Earth. The lab's supercomputer, housed at the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center, is central to these efforts.
The lawsuit, filed by UCAR, alleged that the administration's move was retaliation against Colorado for refusing to cede control over its elections and for prosecuting former county clerk Tina Peters, who was convicted of election interference. The suit named NSF, OMB, the Department of Commerce, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as defendants.
In his order, Jackson wrote that NSF "offered no explanation for its decision" and "failed to abide its own process to consider public feedback before proceeding with the transfer." He emphasized the public interest in maintaining the supercomputer at NCAR, stating that it "supports the efficient and uninterrupted data collection that supports more accurate climate-prediction modeling, which in turn is used to mitigate harmful extreme weather events that are a feature of our world."
"Any degradation in forecasting, modeling, or related scientific capabilities carries real-world consequences, including potential harm to property and human life," Jackson wrote.
UCAR Interim President Eric Barron celebrated the ruling, saying in a statement: "Our work supports national security, public safety, and economic prosperity, and any steps made toward divesting NCAR of its high-performance computing facilities would risk disrupting the country's extraordinary advances in weather and space weather modeling and forecasting, as well as related programs spanning agriculture, water resources, wildfire risk, military support, power grid interruption, and aviation safety."
Barron added that the decision ensures the supercomputing center "will be able to continue its vital work on behalf of the United States and its stakeholders without interruption."
The ruling comes amid broader political battles over climate policy, including Trump's recent shifts in intelligence leadership and ongoing disputes over tariff adjustments. NSF declined to comment on the injunction, and OMB, Commerce, and NOAA did not respond to requests for comment.
