Websites hosting major US climate reports taken down

Washington (AP) It appears that websites that showed legally required national climate assessments for the United States have vanished, making it more difficult for the public and state and local governments to understand what to anticipate in their backyards as a result of global warming.

According to scientists, the credible, peer-reviewed publications save lives and money. On Monday and Tuesday, the U.S. Global Change Research Program and the national assessments’ websites were unavailable, and there were no notes, links, or external referrals.The White House, which was in charge of the evaluations, stated that the data would be kept at NASA in accordance with the law, but it provided no more information.

The assessments were not found when searching NASA websites. Information requests were not answered by NASA. Repeated questions were not answered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which coordinated the data in the evaluations.

Decision-makers across must understand the science behind the National Climate Assessment. According to Kathy Jacobs, a climate scientist at the University of Arizona who oversaw the 2014 edition of the study, it is the most trustworthy and thoroughly examined source of climate data available for the United States.

If the National Climate Assessment is indeed no longer available, it’s a sad day for the United States, Jacobs added. This is proof that the facts and people’s access to information have been seriously manipulated, and it may even make people more vulnerable to the negative effects of climate change.

John Holdren, a Harvard climate scientist who served as President Obama’s science advisor and whose office oversaw the assessments, claimed that following the release of the 2014 edition, he met with mayors, governors, and other local officials who expressed their appreciation for the 841-page study. According to him, it assisted them in determining whether to construct seawalls, raise roadways, or even relocate hospital generators from basements to roofs.

According to Texas Tech climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, who has volunteered as an author for multiple editions of the report, this is a government resource funded by taxpayers that offers the information that is actually the main source of information for any city, state, or federal agency attempting to prepare for the impacts of a changing climate.

NOAA’s library still has copies of previous reports stashed somewhere. There are broken connections to the evaluation site in NASA’s open scientific data repository.

An interactive atlas that zoomed down to the county level was part of the most recent study, which was published in 2023. It discovered that people’s livelihoods, health, and security are being impacted by climate change in various ways across the nation, with Native American and minority populations frequently being disproportionately affected.

The 1990 Global Change Research Act instructs the president to create an interagency United States Global Change Research Program and mandates a national climate assessment every four years. The Trump administration terminated the agreement with the commercial company that assists in organizing the website and report in the spring, telling the volunteer authors of the upcoming climate assessment that their services were not required.

Furthermore, the primary climate.gov webpage of NOAA was recently redirected to another NOAA domain. NOAA and NASA reduced or stopped using social media and blogs to inform the public about the effects of climate change.

According to Holdren, it’s a component of a terrifying larger picture. The entire destruction of science infrastructure is really horrifying.

According to Hayhoe and Jacobs, the national assessments are more extensive and more localized than the United Nations’ international climate reports, which are released every seven or so years.

The National Academy of Sciences, federal agencies, staff, and the general public all analyze the national reports for accuracy in addition to having them peer reviewed by other scientists.

According to Jacobs, concealing the reports would amount to censoring science.

Hayhoe compared it to driving a car on a winding road by merely gazing at the rearview mirror, saying that it is risky for the nation. Now more than ever, we must look ahead and take all necessary precautions to properly navigate that curve. It feels like someone is painting over our windshield.

This report was written by Will Weissert of the Associated Press.

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