Top Website for Crucial U.S. Climate Information Goes Dark
Links to the U.S.’s most comprehensive climate reports—the National Climate Assessments—disappeared from the Internet on Monday, along with the official government website that houses them
As night falls on the eastern U. S. Hurricane Ian can be seen moving slowly inland after coming ashore near Fort Meyers on the west coast of Florida as a Category 4 dangerous storm on September 28, 2022.
ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy Stock Photo
CLIMATEWIRE | Links to the nation’s most comprehensive climate reports disappeared from the internet on Monday — along with the official government website that houses them.
The White House did not respond Monday to questions from POLITICO’s E&E News on what happened to the reports or to the website for the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which coordinates federal climate research. An archived version of the USGCRP site confirms it was still active as of Sunday.
But the removal of the USGCRP website and the accompanying reports tracks with recent actions by the Trump administration as it relates to climate research.
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The missing reports are known as the National Climate Assessments, which are mandated by Congress and are published periodically by the USGCRP. For years, they have outlined the dangers that climate change poses to the United States, and the most recent version — released in 2023 — warned of “potentially catastrophic outcomes” for the U.S. as global temperatures rise and extreme weather worsens.
Their disappearance sparked an immediate reaction from the scientific community.
“Federal science is being systematically erased,” said former NOAA scientist Haley Crim in a Bluesky post.
Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University and an author of the most recent National Climate Assessment, noted in a Bluesky post that these reports qualify as Highly Influential Scientific Assessments under federal guidelines, according to archived statements on the former USGCRP website.
That means they are required to be digitally accessible, which could provide the grounds for a legal challenge.
But the deletion of both the website and the reports is in line with the Trump administration’s boundary-pushing approach to the law — as well as its disregard for the USGCRP.
The Trump administration effectively dismantled the program in April when it removed federal employees from their positions and terminated its contract with the technology and policy consulting firm ICF International, which supports the National Climate Assessment. Later in April, the Trump administration dismissed all scientists working on the next assessment, which was scheduled for publication by 2028.
These moves align with the priorities outlined in the conservative policy playbook known as Project 2025, which called for the White House to “reshape” the USGCRP.
It’s still unclear how the White House will handle future installments of the congressionally mandated National Climate Assessment, if at all. Some experts have suggested the Trump administration could attempt to make the case in future federal reports — falsely — that climate change benefits humankind.
The disappearance of the USGCRP website follows major cuts and changes at the federal agencies responsible for monitoring and studying global warming. The Trump administration has fired or let go thousands of employees at agencies including NOAA, NASA and EPA; terminated major federal climate programs; frozen climate-related grants; and proposed dramatic cuts to federal research programs in its latest budget request.
Scientists say these cuts are blinding the country to the impacts of climate change.
Reprinted from E&E News with permission from POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2025. E&E News provides essential news for energy and environment professionals.
