Trump officials axed an online portal for its key climate report. Read it in full here | Trump administration

The future of the first report on the US government’s climate crisis is dangerously uncertain after the Trump administration removed the website which housed the periodic and legally compulsory assessments that have been produced by scientists in the past two decades.

Five national climate assessments have been compiled since 2000 by researchers from a dozen American government agencies and external scientists, providing a reference report to city and state officials, as well as the general public, global heating and its impacts on human health, agriculture, water supply, air pollution and other aspects of American life.

But although the evaluations are mandated to occur every four years under the legislation adopted by the Congress in 1990, the Trump administration canceled the online portal holding the reports, which was dark last week. A contract to support this work was also torn apart and the researchers who worked on the next report, due around 2027, were rejected.

A copy of the latest assessment, carried out in 2023, is deeply found on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration website. The Guardian reproduces the whole report here in a more visible way for the public to access.

The 2023 assessment, which lasts more than 1,800 pages, warns that the “effects of climate change caused by humans are already large and aggravated in all regions of the United States”. He adds that “without rapid and deep reduction in global emissions of greenhouse gas from human activities, the risks of accelerating the elevation of sea level, the intensification of extreme weather conditions and other harmful climatic impacts will continue to grow.”

Read the entire fifth national climate assessment here (this can take a few seconds for the document load)

NASA said it was downloading the bulky reports on its servers, although the administration has not answered questions about how or the form of future climatic assessments that will be carried out after triggering the research effort.

“The USCGRP website is no longer active,” said a NASA spokesperson, referring to the world research program for American changes, a program funded by the federal government to coordinate climate research. “All preexisting reports will be organized on the NASA website, guaranteeing the continuity of reports.”

The researchers who worked free of charge to produce the reports expressed their concern about the future orientation of the evaluations under Trump, which qualified the climate crisis “a giant scam” and “bullshit” in the past.

As President, Trump has removed the climate information on federal websites, put in research on environmental issues, reduces staff and the financing of weather forecasts and climatic agencies, and has just signed a major republican expense bill that lead clean energies while providing greater support to fossil fuels that cause a dangerous global heating.

“It was a work of love of scientists to the people; These evaluations have been written so that the public and decision -makers make decisions to ensure people’s safety and ensure food and water and infrastructure we need, “Katharine Hayhoe, climatologist with Conservancy and Tech University, said.

“I felt very sad to see that the website was removed because so many people are counting on this information. I also worry that what will come then will be able to respond to the letter of the law without his mind. It could be something full of disinformation, he could ask a model of AI in large language why the Americans should not worry about climate change. We just don’t know. ”

The summary of information in national climate assessments is only competed in its nature, which is authoritative and completed by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Reports, said Hayhoe, and its loss can worsen the impact of the elimination of other sources of climatic information and the forecasting of the aggravation of extreme meteorological events, such as the deadly flood that The week.

“It has alarmed me to see this progressive attrition of capacity because climate change occurs more quickly than any time in human history,” said Hayhoe, who was the main author of the George W Bush administration.

“We get extreme oversized times and that means that we need more information, no less – we need more expertise, more data collection. Unfortunately, we note that resources are withdrawn as our vulnerability increases. ”

Environmental groups have promised to take legal action to fully resuscitate climate assessments while Trump’s political opponents also attacked the withdrawal.

“Burning the legally compulsory climate assessment will not change the fact that climate change already destroys lives and livelihoods, but Trump’s war against truth will hinder the capacity of state governments and local to prepare and protect families against disaster fueled by climate change,” said Sheldon Whitehouse, Democratic Senator.