This meeting is where scientists hatch new ideas for lifesaving methods and warnings, said Dan Sobien, the president of the National Weather Service Employees Organization. “Any delay in that research could someday cost someone their life, and that person could be you or me,” Sobien said. Not having NWS meteorologists there to collaborate “will likely cost many more lives than the absence of any border wall, anywhere.”

Keith Seitter, the executive director of the American Meteorological Society, said the effect of the shutdown on future advances is impossible to calculate, “but we know that it is significant.”

“The interactions that occur at these meetings foster new science and new services across the enterprise that greatly benefit all of society,” Seitter said. “Having one of those sectors not represented at the meeting greatly impedes progress” on saving lives, supporting the economy and building an understanding of the environment.