Why the Best Place for Climate Science Might Be at the Department of Defense

At Virginia's Joint Base Langley-Eustis, the water is rising and the land is sinking. Most of the area, which includes Fort Eustis and Langley Air Force Base, sits just above sea level on a marshy peninsula that juts out where the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean meet. High tides cause some flooding on the base daily. The doors on buildings most at risk are affixed with metal sheets called door dams to keep water out. This has reduced the need for cumbersome and temporary flood-protection sandbags by 70 percent, but door dams can hold back only so much. Projections show that seas are expected to rise in this area by as much as seven feet by the end of this century. That would mean 90 percent of the base could be flooding daily.

To prepare for that, the Department of Defense is turning to climate science and adaptation. So far, it has ordered that all new development at Langley-Eustis be at least 10.5 feet above sea level, and the bases have joined the Sentinel Landscapes Partnership, a conservation initiative that advances climate resilience through natural solutions. In 2023, the office of Glenn Youngkin, Virginia’s Republican governor, released a statement applauding the partnership for “build[ing] resilience against climate-induced hazards.”

The DOD is the fifth-largest federal landowner, with more than 25 million acres under its care, and similar climate-informed preparations are playing out at its properties across the United States. Over the past decade, the agency has recognized the threat that climate change presents to military infrastructure, and in 2021, then–Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III called the climate crisis “an existential threat to our nation’s security.” The potential for the DOD to safeguard and advance climate science is critical, as the second Trump administration could dismantle many of the federal government’s other climate-studying agencies.

The DOD gathers weather and climate data internally and also collaborates with technical experts in academia, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector to collect past and current climatic observations, to predict weather, and to project how climate change will shift future conditions. These data come from underwater and terrestrial sensors and even satellite sensors outside Earth’s atmosphere.

In 2020, the department fully rolled out the DOD Climate Assessment Tool, which uses global models and analyses of over 2,000 locations to understand how the changing climate could impact military bases. The DCAT evaluates a site’s vulnerabilities to eight risks—including flooding, fires, and extreme weather—and then suggests ways to harden or improve infrastructure. “A sound understanding of both weather and climate is critical to the department because accurate interpretations of environmental conditions can make the difference between success and failure in our national security mission,” said Kate White, who was a leader in developing the tool.

Although the DOD has openly been a hotbed of climate science research in the past, experts expect the department will continue to do such work under the climate-denying President Trump by framing its findings differently. Sherri Goodman, a national security executive and lawyer who served as the Pentagon’s first chief environmental officer, expects that officials will talk about the climate crisis without using those specific words. Mitigating the health risks of heat and the general risks of more powerful winds, higher seas, and larger fires may be described under the umbrella of military readiness instead. “People might talk about extreme weather events and talk about the elements of what our climate risk is without using the word climate,” Goodman said.

Still, she’s hopeful that climate resilience is baked into the operational readiness of the military—which a presidential administration skeptical of climate change is unlikely to be able to wipe away—and it will trickle down to everyday life for Americans. Many of the bases that are more vulnerable to climate change are in Republican-led states, such as Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida, which was walloped by high winds during Hurricane Michael in 2018. The DOD is rebuilding Tyndall as the air force’s climate-resilient base of the future, designed to withstand much higher winds than those that destroyed fighter-jet hangars during the hurricane. “That work is going to continue,” said Goodman. “It’s already well underway.”

Even in a shifting political environment, scientific research continues. The DOD is sharing its climate assessment tool with Australia and other allies, for example, to help them better understand pathways toward climate resilience for their military infrastructure.

Climate models are constantly improving, and the DOD has tasked (and funded) outside researchers to help it answer specific questions that relate to mission readiness in a fast-changing world. Some such areas of research include the role of oceans in climate change and how building oyster reefs can mitigate storm damage. The department is also working with Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego to develop and integrate its wave research into the DOD’s models for sea level rise.

While scientists agree that climate change is happening, Trump has publicly called it a hoax on multiple occasions. Yet Goodman is confident that this dissonance with the commander in chief won’t prevent the DOD from pursuing climate science and making effective decisions based on the results. “It’s not a matter of whether it’s a hoax or not,” she said. “If you wait for 100 percent certainty, you know something bad is going to happen on the battlefield.”