Government Shutdown Takes Toll on Science as Data Goes Uncollected

But the conference, where more than 700 federal employees had been expected, will have few federal scientists in attendance. Many are barred from participating during the partial government shutdown, just one of the numerous consequences for the science community during the capital’s latest spending standoff.

“It’s a huge opportunity lost,” said Daniel A. Sobien, president of the National Weather Service Employees Organization and a forecaster in the agency’s office near Tampa, Florida.

The shutdown, now in its third week, has emptied some laboratories across the country, forced scientists from the field, upended important scientific conferences, imperiled the flow of grant money and disrupted careful planning for future studies, some of which are time-sensitive.

“We’re not collecting data,” said Leland S. Stone, an area vice president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, which represents many federal scientists. “And we’re not analyzing the data and we’re not able to make the advances that we’re paid to do.”

The impasse, current and former officials said, will eventually show in shutdown-size gaps in data that scientists often collect across generations.

“It’s not just the gap,” said Sally Jewell, who was secretary of the interior during the 16-day shutdown in 2013. “It’s the ability to correlate that with a broader picture of what’s happening environmentally and ecologically. It really does mess things up.”

The current shutdown has not affected every part of the government’s science apparatus because some agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, were entirely or mostly funded through other legislation. The Department of Energy, which runs the nation’s nuclear laboratories, is similarly unaffected.

But many other agencies have closed or slowed down. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which includes the National Weather Service, has furloughed many workers. Almost all employees at the Environmental Protection Agency and NASA have been furloughed.

Stopgap solutions, scientists said, will prove unworkable if the shutdown lasts for “months or even years,” as Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said President Donald Trump threatened Friday.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.