The Trump administration is eroding vital climate data

Feb 4th 2026|4 min read

AMERICAN SCIENTISTS have historically been leaders in the collection and analysis of data on climate change. The longest-running observations of carbon-dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere, for example, are collected at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii. The National Snow and Ice Data Centre at the University of Colorado, Boulder, for its part, holds unique databases on the annual ebb and flow of sea ice at both poles. America also owns 58% of the roughly 4,000 Argo floats which drift at depth across the world’s oceans, gauging their health before popping up to the surface every ten days or so to broadcast their data home.