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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is pulling its support from an Arctic climate and environment report it has helped with in the past.
Rick Thoman, lead editor for the 2026 Arctic Report Card, said that participants were informed Monday that they would no longer receive assistance from the government agency.
“We were informed in a phone call with NOAA yesterday that effective immediately NOAA was ending all support for the Arctic Report Card,” Thoman told The Hill.
“No rationale was given at all,” he added.
The report has been published every year since 2006 and describes current conditions in the Arctic.
Zack Labe, who has been a co-author of one of the report’s chapters for the last several years, said that the Arctic Report Card details all kinds of facets of the Arctic environment including ecosystems, atmosphere and oceans.
“It’s strictly focused on trying to understand the data from year to year of all of these different pieces of the Arctic,” Labe said, describing the report as a “go-to resource” for both decisionmakers and the general public.
The government move to withdraw support, which was first reported by Politico, throws this year’s iteration of the report into flux.
“We are frantically working to find a way” to make this year’s report happen, Thoman said. “Whether we can pull something together to have a December release, we’ll try to make it happen…being it’s already August, that’s going to be a tough lift but we’ll try.”
He added that the report is largely done on a volunteer basis but NOAA has provided help in creating graphics, formatting and coordinating the peer review process.
“We will have to find a way to…maintain the integrity of the peer review process,” he said.
NOAA spokespeople did not immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment. However, the agency confirmed to CNN that it would no longer coordinate the report, but said it would still collect and publish data.
Last year, NOAA did publish the Arctic Report Card on its website.
While it’s not clear who gave the direction to stop supporting the report this year, it comes after several other moves made by the Trump administration to target climate science and action. This includes dismissing all of the scientists working on the National Climate Assessment and repealing an Environmental Protection Agency legal finding that the phenomenon poses a threat to the public.
While President Trump has claimed that climate change is a hoax, there is an overwhelming consensus in the scientific community that climate change is real, human caused and exacerbates extreme weather.
Thoman, meanwhile, described the report as nonpolitical, simply focusing on what the weather has looked like in the Arctic over the course of the year.
“The Arctic Report Card has been focused on reporting observations in the Arctic, not modeling, not projections, not policy,” he said. “This isn’t a political thing.”
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