UPI – “The Trump administration has quietly shut down a major federal website that hosted congressionally mandated national climate assessments, which were the U.S. government’s preeminent reports on climate change impacts, risks and responses. The disappearance Monday of the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s website marked an unexpected loss in public access to the most crucial source for climate-related science. Also missing was access to previous National Climate Assessments, which are robust scientific evaluations used by lawmakers, scientists and the public to understand and mitigate climate change trends. Climate scientists condemned the missing access to the vital climate science information, which offered guidance to communities on the climate risks they face, as well as how to plan for and safeguard residents from climate-related disasters like floods and wildfires…

None of the five previous iterations of the assessment was available through the Global Change Research Program website as of Tuesday afternoon. Clicking on the 2023 Fifth National Climate Assessment produced an error message. Archived versions of the assessments were buried deep in the Environmental Protection Agency website, but only via the agency’s search engine. They also could also be accessed through the Wayback Machine, a non-profit Internet archive. Some climate scientists downloaded copies of past assessments and uploaded them to their own websites after the site went dark…”