NATIONAL NEWS

Scientific societies say they’ll do national climate assessment after Trump dismissed report authors

May 2, 2025, 11:11 AM

FILE - Marquetta Wheeler, right, with Samaria Williams and Jemaria Shaw, walk through flood waters ...

FILE - Marquetta Wheeler, right, with Samaria Williams and Jemaria Shaw, walk through flood waters as they leave their home on Marietta Drive in Hopkinsville, Ky., April 4, 2025. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS

(AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two major scientific societies on Friday said they will fill the void from the Trump administration’s dismissal of scientists writing a cornerstone federal report on what climate change is doing to the United States.

The American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union said they will work together to produce peer-reviewed research documents assessing the current and future national impacts of climate change because a science-based report required by law is suddenly in question and being reassessed by President Donald Trump’s White House.

Earlier this week, Trump’s Republican administration told about 400 scientists working on the National Climate Assessment that they were no longer needed and that the report was being reevaluated. That report, coming once every four to five years, is required by a 1990 federal law and was due out around 2027. Preliminary budget documents show slashing funding or eliminating offices involved in coordinating that report, scientists and activists said.

“We are filling in a gap in the scientific process,” AGU President Brandon Jones said. “It’s more about ensuring that science continues.”

Meteorological society past president Anjuli Bamzi, a retired federal atmospheric scientist who has worked on previous National Climate Assessments, said one of the most important parts of the federal report is that it projects 25 and 100 years into the future.

With the assessment “we’re better equipped to deal with the future,” Bamzi said. “We can’t be an ostrich and put our head in the sand and let it go.”

Texas Tech University climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, also chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy, said the two organizations joining to do this report “is a testament to how important it is that the latest science be summarized and available.”

Hayhoe, who was a lead author of reports in 2009, 2018 and 2023, said “people are not aware of how climate change is impacting the decisions that they are making today, whether it’s the size of the storm sewer pipes they’re installing, whether it is the expansion of the flood zone where people are building, whether it is the increases in extreme heat.”

They need that knowledge to figure out how to adapt to harms in the future and even the present, Hayhoe said.

The national assessment, unlike global United Nations documents, highlights what’s happening to weather not just in the nation but at regional and local levels.

Jones said he hopes the societies’ version of the assessment can be done in just one year.

The last climate assessment report, released in 2023, said that climate change is ”harming physical, mental, spiritual, and community health and well-being through the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme events, increasing cases of infectious and vector-borne diseases, and declines in food and water quality and security.”

In 2018, during Trump’s first term, the assessment was just as blunt, saying: “Climate change creates new risks and exacerbates existing vulnerabilities in communities across the United States, presenting growing challenges to human health and safety, quality of life, and the rate of economic growth.”

But University of Illinois climate scientist Donald Wuebbles, who led one of 2018’s two national reports, said he worries about what kind of document this new administration will try to issue, if any.

“I think they’ll put out something that will, like, it’ll be be scientifically based, but it will be pretty crappy,” Wuebbles told The Associated Press.

Watering down or killing the national assessment will not keep the message about the importance of climate change from getting out, Wuebbles said. The scientific societies’ efforts to fill the void will have some value because it will be a statement of the scientific community, and, in the end, he said, science is about data and observations.

“We know this is an extremely important problem. We know it is human activities driving it. So the question is: What do you do about it?” Wuebbles said.

Storms and wildfires don’t care if it’s a red state or a blue state, Hayhoe said.

“Climate change affects us all,” Hayhoe said. “It doesn’t matter how we vote.”

___

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the AP’s for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at .

National News

FILE - Marquetta Wheeler, right, with Samaria Williams and Jemaria Shaw, walk through flood waters ...

Associated Press

Scientific societies say they’ll do national climate assessment after Trump dismissed report authors

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two major scientific societies on Friday said they will fill the void from the Trump administration’s dismissal of scientists writing a cornerstone federal report on what climate change is doing to the United States. The American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union said they will work together to produce peer-reviewed research […]

1 minute ago

Advocates for migrant rights hold signs outside the South Florida office of U.S. Immigration and Cu...

Associated Press

Door knocks and DNA tests: How the Trump administration plans to keep tabs on 450,000 migrant kids

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration is conducting a nationwide, multi-agency review of 450,000 migrant children who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border without their parents during President Joe Biden’s term. Trump officials say they want to track down those children and ensure their safety. Many of the children came to the U.S. during surges at […]

48 minutes ago

Associated Press

Judge denies effort by US Rep Cuellar of Texas to move bribery trial to hometown of Laredo

HOUSTON (AP) — A judge on Friday denied an effort by lawyers for U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas to move his trial on federal bribery and conspiracy charges from Houston to his hometown of Laredo, Texas. During a Zoom court hearing, Chris Flood, one of Cuellar’s lawyers, had argued that Houston is more than […]

60 minutes ago

Associated Press

Kentucky man who won Powerball jackpot lands in Florida jail days later

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A Kentucky Powerball winner was arrested and charged with kicking a police officer in Florida days after he won a $167 million jackpot. James S. Farthing, who goes by Shannon, found out Sunday that he won the state’s biggest ever jackpot after his mother called him, according to a media release […]

2 hours ago

Associated Press

7 people are dead after pickup and tour van collide near Yellowstone National Park, police say

ISLAND PARK, Idaho (AP) — Idaho State Police say seven people died after a pickup truck and a tour van collided in eastern Idaho near Yellowstone National Park. The crash happened just before 7:15 p.m. Thursday on a highway near Henry’s Lake State Park. The state park is roughly 16 miles (25.75 kilometers) west of […]

2 hours ago

FILE - The United Nations flag flies on a stormy day at the U.N. during the United Nations General ...

Associated Press

UN memo lays out proposals for sweeping reforms and consolidation of its operations

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — United Nations officials have circulated proposals for a vast consolidation of its operations and other sweeping reforms to root out inefficiencies, overlaps and cost overruns as the world body faces a critical funding crunch, according an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press. The proposals, which are in the early stages […]

2 hours ago

Scientific societies say they’ll do national climate assessment after Trump dismissed report authors