Key US national climate assessments, which help state and local governments prepare for the impacts of a warming world, appear to have been removed from the federal websites designed to display them. Scientists say the peer-reviewed reports save lives and money by providing localised information on climate risks.
The websites for the national assessments and the US Global Change Research Program were inaccessible on Monday and Tuesday, with no links or referrals elsewhere. The White House stated that the information will be housed within Nasa to comply with the law, but gave no further details. Searches on Nasa websites did not find the reports, and Nasa did not respond to requests for information. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), which coordinated the assessments, also did not respond to inquiries.
“It’s critical for decision-makers across the country to know what the science in the National Climate Assessment is,” said Kathy Jacobs, a University of Arizona climate scientist who coordinated the 2014 edition. “It’s a sad day for the United States if it is true that the National Climate Assessment is no longer available. This is evidence of serious tampering with the facts and with people’s access to information, and it actually may increase the risk of people being harmed by climate-related impacts.”
Harvard climate scientist John Holdren, who was Barack Obama’s science adviser, said local officials had told him how useful the 841-page report was for decisions on raising roads, building seawalls and moving hospital generators from basements to roofs. Texas Tech climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, a volunteer author for several editions, called the reports a primary source for any agency preparing for climate impacts. Copies of past reports remain in Noaa’s library, but Nasa’s open science data repository includes dead links to the assessment site.
The most recent report, issued in 2023, includes an interactive atlas down to county level and found that climate change disproportionately affects minority and Native American communities. In the spring, the Trump administration told volunteer authors for the next assessment that their services were not needed and ended a contract with the private firm coordinating the website. Additionally, Noaa’s main climate.gov website has been redirected, and social media and blogs about climate impacts at Noaa and Nasa have been cut.
“It’s part of a horrifying big picture,” Holdren said. “It’s just an appalling whole demolition of science infrastructure.” Hayhoe compared the removal to steering a car on a curving road while looking only in the rearview mirror: “Now, more than ever, we need to be looking ahead to do everything it takes to make it around that curve safely. It’s like our windshield’s being painted over.”
