The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump is ending support for NOAA’s annual report on the state of the Arctic.
NOAA Spokesperson Kim Doster told CNN that the 2026 Arctic Report Card will not be facilitated through the agency. However, Doster added that the data that historically contributed to the product “will continue to be collected and will remain publicly available.”
The Arctic Report Card reviews data on the Arctic region, including factors like Arctic Ocean primary productivity, sea surface temperature, and sea ice – all of which factor into the health of commercially significant fish and shellfish species in the Arctic ocean.
Environmental groups like Ocean Conservancy said the move is cutting off a valuable tool when considering the impacts of climate change.
“What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic. Its rapid warming has profound consequences for Arctic communities, ocean health, and our global climate,” Ocean Conservancy Vice President of Arctic and Northern Waters Wáahlaal Gíidaak said in a release. “We are already seeing the devastating impacts of extreme heat around the world, and those changes are even more pronounced in our ocean, which acts as a global heat sink. We cannot afford to look away from what is happening in the Arctic or stop measuring it. We should continue to fund critical NOAA programs, such as the report card, which are essential to protecting our ocean and keeping Americans safe.”
CNN reported that anonymous sources connected to NOAA said the call to discontinue the report came on 10 August with no warning and no explanation.
The move is the latest in a series of pushes by the Trump administration against gathering climate-related data. In June, it announced plans to dismantle the Ocean Observatories Initiative, which monitors deep-ocean regions with hundreds of different instruments. Those plans were walked back after legislative pushback from members of U.S. Congress.
The administration has also halted all updates and taken down posts on climate.gov. The site now redirects to NOAA’s website.
