Only days after the Trump administration dismissed authors of a congressionally mandated climate report, two of the biggest and most reputable Earth science societies announced they will pick up the slack and pursue a collection of reports in its place.
The announcement Friday morning from the American Geophysical Union and American Meteorological Society is a solicitation for authors to contribute scientific studies that would have gone into the Sixth National Climate Assessment.
The new research will be published in a special collection across 29 peer-reviewed research journals. The official assessment was on track to publish in 2028. It is unclear whether the administration will seek to publish an assessment with a different viewpoint.
“The new special collection does not replace the NCA but instead creates a mechanism for this important work to continue,” the AGU and AMS said in a joint statement.
The move is a pointed response to the administration’s actions to either abandon the NCA entirely or produce an alternate report downplaying the threat climate change poses to the United States, according to Brandon Jones, president of AGU.
The dismissals followed other attacks on climate science and efforts to defund climate research, Jones told CNN.
He compared the special collection of studies to a library that will grow over time. “We’re responding in this collaborative way with a sibling society to stand up for science and maintain the missions that we hold dear as societal organizations,” Jones said.
Congress mandated the NCA to be produced every four years, with the next one due out by the end of Trump’s second term in office. The assessment provides detailed information on how the climate crisis is affecting the US in terms of extreme weather impacts, adaptation and mitigation options for the country as well as regions, states and localities.
The administration sent an email to about 400 of the report’s authors earlier this week, many of them located in academia, and told them their work was no longer needed as the assessment is being rethought.
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