Climate.gov archive is revived by nonprofit after federal site is removed
Former Climate.gov staff and volunteers launched climate.us to restore federal climate materials that disappeared from the government site.
By Hana Yoshida · Markets Reporter
3 min read
A nonprofit group has relaunched much of the material once hosted at Climate.gov after the federal website was removed from its former home. The move matters because Climate.gov had served as a public gateway to government climate data, explainers, education material and national assessments built over many years.
Visitors to Climate.gov are now sent to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration climate page. NOAA’s redirect notice says the change was made in compliance with Executive Order 14303, titled “Restoring Gold Standard Science,” along with White House science-policy guidance and several federal statutes tied to climate research and NOAA education programs.
The NOAA notice says future research products previously hosted under Climate.gov will be made available through NOAA.gov/climate and related sites. Ars Technica reported that the redirection effectively ended Climate.gov as a standalone portal and tied the change to the Trump administration’s stated “gold standard science” policy.
Former staff and volunteers rebuild the archive
The replacement site, climate.us, was created by volunteers and former Climate.gov administrators, according to Ars Technica. The group was able to preserve copies of a large share of the material because federal government works generally cannot be copyrighted, Ars Technica reported.
Climate.us said Tuesday that it had finished restoring the information lost when Climate.gov was shut down. In its announcement, the organization said the site includes 15 years of Climate.gov climate news, expert blogs, climate indicator graphics, maps, data access tools, climate literacy content and classroom resources.
The group also said climate.us restores access to the Fifth National Climate Assessment, the federal report that summarizes climate science, impacts and risks in the United States. The announcement did not say that climate.us is a government site; it described the project as an independent effort to keep trusted climate information available to the public.
Plans go beyond restoration
The team behind climate.us includes several people who helped build Climate.gov, according to Ars Technica. After setting up a nonprofit to run the site, the organization said it plans to shift from recovery work to ongoing public service.
Climate.us said that next work will include creating resources and developing new materials to help people understand a changing climate. The group framed the relaunch as both an archive project and the start of a longer-term effort to maintain public access to climate information outside the federal website that previously housed it.
The federal government’s own climate material has not disappeared entirely from public view. NOAA’s redirect notice says future research products will be posted through NOAA and affiliated websites. But the rebuilt site puts the former Climate.gov collection back in one independent location, according to climate.us, preserving a public-facing resource that had been assembled by government researchers and government-sponsored programs over decades.
This story draws on original reporting from Ars Technica.