Why were websites hosting major US climate reports taken down?
According to AP, websites for the national assessments and the US Global Change Research Program were offline on Monday and Tuesday, with no links, notes or referrals elsewhere.
The disappearance has sparked concern over transparency, public access to science, and potential risks to communities facing escalating climate threats.
"It's a sad day for the United States if it is true that the National Climate Assessment is no longer available," said University of Arizona climate scientist Kathy Jacobs, who coordinated the 2014 version of the report.
"This is evidence of serious tampering with the facts and with people's access to information, and it actually may increase the risk of people being harmed by climate-related impacts," he added. Why were the websites down?
The White House on Tuesday confirmed that the information was being relocated to NASA, claiming the move was intended to comply with legal requirements. However, searches for the assessments on NASA websites did not turn them up.
Dead links and outdated references have replaced interactive tools and county-level data that once served as planning lifelines for local officials across the country. NASA and NOAA — the agencies previously responsible for hosting and coordinating the data — have not responded to repeated AP inquiries.
No official timeline for the takedown has been given so far.
The most recent report, issued in 2023, included an interactive atlas that zoomed down to the county level. It found that climate change is affecting people's security, health and livelihoods in every corner of the country in different ways, with minority and Native American communities often disproportionately at risk.
The 1990 Global Change Research Act requires a national climate assessment every four years and directs the president to establish an interagency United States Global Change Research Program. Trump fired volunteer authors of climate assessment
In the spring, the Trump administration told the volunteer authors of the next climate assessment that their services weren't needed and ended the contract with the private firm that helps coordinate the website and report.
Additionally, NOAA's main climate.gov website was recently forwarded to a different NOAA website. Social media and blogs at NOAA and NASA about climate impacts for the general public were cut or eliminated.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Mint
2 hours ago
- Mint
NASA Says Thousands of Employees Set to Resign from Space Agency
(Bloomberg) -- NASA will lose roughly 3,870 employees through a voluntary resignation program, part of a broad push from President Donald Trump's administration to reduce the federal workforce. The numbers are subject to change as NASA reviews applications, including if an employee withdraws from the program or a resignation isn't approved, the US space agency said in a statement on Friday. 'Safety remains a top priority for our agency as we balance the need to become a more streamlined and more efficient organization and work to ensure we remain fully capable of pursuing a Golden Era of exploration and innovation, including to the Moon and Mars,' NASA said. NASA has offered employees two separate opportunities in 2025 to leave through the government's Deferred Resignation Program. The agency said its expected remaining civil servant workforce would be about 14,000 people, following both resignation programs, as well as normal attrition of about 500 people over the same time period. The first round came during the start of the Trump administration when federal workers received emails offering them the opportunity to take a buyout, an effort spearheaded by the Elon Musk-helmed Department of Government Efficiency. About 870 people, or 4.8% of the NASA workforce, took the offer then. NASA initiated its own second round of deferred resignation beginning in early June, with a deadline to opt in by July 25. About 3,000 personnel, or 16.4% of the workforce, took it up, the agency said Friday. Executives at the space agency, who have been working to reduce headcount to comply with the Trump administration's goal of shrinking the federal workforce, have spearheaded deferred resignation as a way to avoid layoffs. 'The reason we are doing this is to minimize any involuntary workforce reductions in the future,' NASA's former acting administrator Janet Petro said during an agency town hall on June 25, according to an audio recording obtained by Bloomberg. 'That is our whole goal, minimizing that.' NASA had sought a 'blanket waiver' in February to save all of the agency's probationary employees from layoffs. The prospect of a mass exodus of employees from NASA has raised alarm bells within the industry and at the agency, with some experts arguing that the the cuts will cause NASA to lose some of its best talent. In a letter to newly appointed NASA interim administrator Sean Duffy titled 'The Voyager Declaration,' hundreds of former and current employees warned Duffy, who is also the head of the Transportation Department, that workforce reductions could jeopardize the safety and efficiency of operations. 'Thousands of NASA civil servant employees have already been terminated, resigned or retired early, taking with them highly specialized, irreplaceable knowledge crucial to carrying out NASA's mission,' they wrote in the letter to Duffy. More stories like this are available on
Deccan Herald
5 hours ago
- Deccan Herald
NISAR: Eyes wide open on Earth
The story of the world's most advanced and expensive earth observation satellite began nearly 15 years ago when the Indian Space Research Organisation turned down an offer from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to launch a radar satellite using an Indian rocket from Sriharikota spaceport. The US satellite was to use sweepSAR (sweep synthetic aperture radar) technology to provide wide area coverage and fine spatial resolution at the same time. New Delhi proposed an alternative: housing two radars in a single satellite. Both parties agreed, and an agreement was inked. The L-band radar, associated systems, and the antenna were made at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California, while the S-band radar was built at the Space Application Centre, Ahmedabad. From next week, the two synthetic aperture radars aboard NISAR will detect changes in the planet's surface down to fractions of an inch. The spacecraft will bounce microwave signals off Earth's surface and receive the return signals on a radar antenna reflector measuring 12 meters across. The satellite's ability to see through clouds and rain, day and night, will enable users to continuously monitor earthquake and landslide-prone areas and determine how quickly glaciers and ice sheets are Exploring new frontiers in space cooperation.'NISAR can detect even small changes in the Earth's surface such as ground deformation, ice sheet movement and vegetation dynamics,' ISRO says. Other applications include sea ice classification, ship detection, shoreline monitoring, storm characterisation, changes in soil moisture, mapping and monitoring of surface water resources and disaster response. 'It's a highly advanced satellite,' notes K Sivan, former ISRO chairman. Earthquakes, volcanoes, and ageing infrastructure can pose risks to lives and property. Able to see subtle changes in Earth's surface, NISAR can help with hazard-monitoring efforts and potentially give decision-makers more time to prepare for a disaster. For earthquakes, it will provide insights into which parts of a fault slowly move without producing quakes and which are locked together and could potentially slip. For the farm sector, it will help monitor the growth of crops from planting to harvest, generating crucial insights on how to time plantings and adjust irrigation schedules. The mission will have the resolution to see even small plots of farmland. The satellite's development path was a challenging one. The ISRO-NASA pact was signed in October 2014 with a target to launch the satellite by 2020. But developing the radar and antenna took more time, and the US could transfer the payload to India only in 2023-24. Unfortunately, within months, it was sent to the USA for repair. In March 2024, the radar antenna reflector of the satellite was transported back to a facility in California, where reflective tape was applied and other precautionary measures were taken to mitigate temperature increases that could have potentially affected the deployment of the reflector from its stowed configuration before beginning the science operations in space. The component returned to ISRO's clean room by October 2024, when the Indian space agency began preparation for a February launch, which didn't materialise. Ironically, a GSLV with a cryogenic engine will be used to launch the India-US satellite on July 30, even though the USA left no stone unturned for India to acquire the cryogenic technology. The mission's extraordinary capabilities come from the synthetic aperture radar. As the radar travels, its antenna continuously transmits microwave pulses and receives echoes from the surface. When the pulses hit something — a volcanic cone, for example — they scatter. The antenna receives those signals that echo back to the instrument, which measures their strength, change in frequency, how long they took to return, and if they bounced off of multiple surfaces, such as buildings. 'This mission packs in a wide range of science toward a common goal of studying our changing planet and the impacts of natural hazards,' says Deepak Putrevu, co-lead of the ISRO science team at the Space Applications Centre in Ahmedabad.
India.com
14 hours ago
- India.com
These 7 animals found on Earth can survive in space, names include cockroach, Tardigrade, Brine Shrimp and…, check full list here
These 7 animals found on Earth can survive in space, names include cockroach, Tardigrade, Brine Shrimp and…, check full list here Their eggs were sent into space and hatched there, and they survived perfectly. By Tahir Qureshi Edited by Tahir Qureshi Advertisement (Representational image: New Delhi: Space is one of the most dangerous places for humans. There is neither oxygen, nor air nor water. On top of that, the vacuum, cosmic radiation and sometimes extreme cold and sometimes extreme heat are life-threatening. But do you know that there are some strange creatures on our earth that can survive even in these extremely difficult conditions? They are no less than a miracle in the eyes of biology. Here we are sharing a list of 7 creatures that can survive in space. Tardigrade: It is one of the toughest organisms. These are small microscopic organisms that can survive in boiling water, freezing cold, radiation and even the vacuum of space. In 2007, scientists sent them to space and they returned alive. They take themselves to a special 'cryptobiosis' state, in which they can survive for years without eating or drinking. Advertisement === Cockroach: Cockroaches are said to survive nuclear radiation. In 2007, as part of Russia's Foton-M3 space mission, cockroach eggs were kept in space radiation. The result was that the eggs hatched safely and the cockroaches remained alive. This is the reason why these creatures can withstand the difficulties of space. Nematode Worm: These small insects were sent in NASA's Columbia Space Shuttle Mission. The special thing was that an accident occurred during the re-entry of the space shuttle, but these small worms endured everything and remained alive. Scientists use them to understand muscle weakness, aging and genetic changes. Advertisement === Brine Shrimp: Brine Shrimp are small shrimp-like creatures that can survive even after drying up completely. Their eggs were sent into space and hatched there and they survived perfectly. This is the reason why research is going on to use them to create closed ecosystems in space missions. Fruit Flies: Fruit Flies were the first creatures to go into space. America sent them into space in the year 1947. They reproduce quickly and scientists use them to understand the effect of microgravity and radiation. Fungi: Some species of fungi, such as Cryptococcus neoformans and Cladosporium sphaerospermum, survive the radiation of space. Scientists are now studying them as natural radiation shields or food options for space missions. Zebrafish: Zebrafish are important organisms in space research because they have DNA similar to humans and their bodies are transparent. They have been used in ISS missions to understand heart development, bone fragility and the effects of microgravity on the brain. Their embryos have successfully developed in the harsh conditions of space.
