This new paper highlights a number of topics where scientists might best fill the vacuum created by the White House’s report-quashing actions. That includes some of the basics you would expect in any assessment report, like comparing measured trends to climate model projections.
Credit:
Kenney, et al.
But it also calls out areas that have seen developments in the last few years. Climate modeling has dabbled in machine-learning-based simulations, for example, as well as techniques to generate simulations with finer spatial resolution.
To-do lists
There have also been plenty of changes we’ll need to catch up to on the human side. US climate policy overall has been a chaotic moving target. But on a more local scale beneath that, many climate adaptation and emissions reduction efforts are playing out. And while renewable energy continues to get cheaper and see more deployment, the AI data center rush has significantly reshaped the expectations regarding US electricity demand.
The paper also calls out ways that assessments could mirror or build on the regional focus employed by past National Climate Assessments. Zooming in on one portion of the United States is a great way to connect the dots and make the science more concrete and relatable. Using Alaska as an example, it notes that research connecting permafrost thaw and wildfires has recently explored how heavy metals like mercury can be subsequently released into surface waters.
One silver lining to working outside of a federally coordinated US National Climate Assessment would be that these analyses don’t have to stop at national borders. That could mean expanding analysis into Canada, or it could mean evaluating how trade links the US to a climate impact elsewhere in the world.
Following this publication, we’ll begin to see a variety of papers roll in covering these topics, and likely more besides. “I see this roadmap as seeding and accelerating a distributed synthesis effort rather than launching a centrally managed research program,” Melisa Kenney, a leader author on the paper, told Ars. “The goal is for papers to synthesize our current scientific understanding of key topics to support a network of climate assessment efforts occurring at state, local, sectoral, or other scales.”
Any groups working on those assessment reports will then be able to lean on the US Climate Collection in the absence of a high-quality US National Climate Assessment.
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 2026. DOI: 10.1175/BAMS‐D‐26‐0305.1 and Earth’s Future, 2026. DOI: 10.1029/2025EF007336 (About DOIs).