Climate.gov consolidated into NOAA website due to Trump executive order

WASHINGTON, D.C., USA — A federal website displaying research and data about climate change was taken down and consolidated with another Friday in response to one of President Donald Trump’s executive orders. 

The latest change to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration comes a little over a month after Trump issued an executive order with the aim he says would “restore a gold standard for science to ensure that federally funded research is transparent, rigorous, and impactful, and that Federal decisions are informed by the most credible, reliable, and impartial scientific evidence available.”

NOAA is a federal agency that provides “daily weather forecasts, severe storm warnings and climate monitoring to fisheries management, coastal restoration and supporting marine commerce” among other things, according to its website. 

It’s one of many federal agencies the Trump administration has cut funding, staffing and more from. 

In the May 23 order, Trump said the federal government “used or promoted scientific information in a highly misleading manner,” leading to loss of trust with the public. 

He specifically mentioned how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued guidance on reopening the schools with edits encouraged by the American Federation of Teachers. He accused it of being “restrictive and burdensome” and it “discouraged in-person learning.”

The order defines “Gold Standard Science” as science done in a “reproducible and transparent” way with “communicative of error and uncertainty, collaborative and interdisciplinary,” and is “skeptical of its findings and assumptions, structured for falsifiability of hypotheses, subject to unbiased peer review, accepting of negative results as positive outcomes and without conflicts of interest.”

It’s split scientists online. Some argue the website and it’s contents should be removed entirely instead of replaced, while others worry the order will further politicize science since it says a “senior appointee,” defined as someone appointed by the president, would “correct scientific information in response to violations.”

In response, within the 60-day deadline on the order, NOAA is relocating all research data from Climate.gov to NOAA.gov to “centralize and consolidate resources.” 

“Future research products previously housed under Climate.gov will be available at NOAA.gov and its affiliate websites,” the agency said on social media Friday. 

It appears articles, blogs and links previously posted to Climate.gov are still active and accessible through previous social media posts. 

Data posted to the homepage of the old website included a Global Climate Dashboard with statistics about Arctic sea ice, mountain glaciers and spring snow levels shrinking, carbon dioxide, greenhouse gases, ocean temperatures and the sea levels increasing, the ocean heating up due to global warming, and Earth’s surface temperature doubling since 1981. 

None of this data, or the dashboard, are immediately seen on the new webpage. Climate change tools and resources are still accessible. 

NOAA.gov now has a tab on the left side of the screen reading “climate” where Climate.gov data will appear. If a user tries to access Climate.gov other than clicking on direct or old links, they will be redirected to NOAA.gov/climate.