Climate scientists fired by Trump step in to fill U.S. report gap

More than a year after the Trump administration dismissed hundreds of scientists working on the National Climate Assessment, clouding the landmark publication’s future, many of those researchers and others released Tuesday the first installment of a special collection of climate change findings designed to fill the perceived gap left behind.The new research commentary, published in scientific journals operated by the American Geophysical Union and American Meteorological Society, is meant to be something of a roadmap for what new climate research scientists should pursue and highlight to the public.

As part of the special collection, the two organizations plan to publish additional research studies that state and local groups could use to build their own climate assessments.“Scientists working on climate change are continuing to do the work,” said Melissa Kenney, a lead author of the report and the director of research at the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment.

“We’re stepping in to ensure that we have the research that we need, and that that is going to be available when we’re working with our communities, with our states, and that it will be available if there are future U.S.national climate assessments.”In April 2025, the Trump administration halted independent scientists’ work on the sixth national assessment — a congressionally mandated report that summarizes the effects of global climate change in the United States — telling hundreds of scientists who had volunteered to contribute that they were no longer needed.

The administration also cut funding to the U.S.Global Change Research Program, whose staffers organized the report’s production.

The USGCRP website is no longer online.Low water level lines mark the receded shoreline at Lake Powell in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area on April 30 near Big Water, Utah.

RJ Sangosti / Denver Post via Getty ImagesThe new report, published in the journals Earth’s Futur...