When Rachel Cleetus opened her inbox last Monday to find an email from the Trump administration her first reaction was "just deep disappointment."

She was one of nearly 400 scientists and experts dismissed from working on the sixth National Climate Assessment (NCA6), a leading report of climate change's impact on the United States published every four years.

The email stated that while the scope of NCA6 was "reevaluated", all contributors were released from their roles.

Cleetus, a senior policy director for the climate and energy program at the US based non-profit Union of Concerned Scientists, described the dismissal of its authors as senselessly taking a "hatchet to a crucial and comprehensive US climate science report."

She says the NCA reports, which were first published in 2000 and draw on the latest scientific research, are vital to understanding how climate change is already impacting the economy, infrastructure and people's lives across the country.

The email, however, was not a complete surprise, says Cleetus. "We had, of course, been dreading this," she told DW.

Earlier last month, the White House ended funding and fired staff at the US Global Change Research Program (USGCPR), the federal program coordinating the NCA6.

Cleetus said disbanding the authors puts the NCA6 report — which was due to be published by early 2028 and is congressionally mandated — in jeopardy and that the administration's further plans were unclear. "There's a risk that they just try to inject some junk science and create their own version."

The NCA6 news is the latest in a series of administration decisions over recent months impacting climate science bodies in the US.

In March

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