In yet another move to gut climate research, the Trump administration has killed the program that tracks major natural disasters.
On Thursday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) revealed it has retired its long-running Billion Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters Report, an annual report that monitors the financial impact of extreme weather events that cause more than $1 billion in damage. According to the bare-bones announcement, the NOAA’s 2024 report was its last.
“The NOAA Billion Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters product will be retired, with no updates beyond calendar year 2024,” the announcement said.
In an email to The New York Times, a NOAA spokesperson said ending the annual report was a result of the agency’s “evolving priorities, statutory mandates, and staffing changes.”
The news comes just six days after the Trump administration announced it would slash NOAA’s annual budget by $1.5 billion—a cut of nearly 25 percent. The budget cut was part of a major sweep to decimate federally funded climate change-related initiatives, which also included canceling nearly $15 billion in clean energy funding for the Department of Energy and slashing an additional $4.7 billion from the agency’s budget.
The NOAA’s database of billion-dollar disasters is essential for many climate change researchers as the frequency of extreme weather events has been steadily increasing since the report began 45 years ago. In 1980, the NOAA counted three billion-dollar disasters. Its 2024 report counted 27.
Created in 1980 under the Carter administration, the report tracks tropical cyclones, inland floods, droughts, heat waves, severe storms, wildfires, and freezes and has been a critical resource for insurance companies and lawmakers alike.
Many states rely on the NOAA reports when setting their annual budgets, as its data can help to identify regional patterns of extreme weather and thus help legislators determine how large a financial cushion to create.
The NOAA report is also the largest database of its kind in the country, and experts are concerned that private agencies won’t be able to replicate the comprehensive report.
The NOAA gathers its data from a combination of federal organizations like the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Agriculture, state agencies, and private companies, some of which share proprietary information exclusive to the report.
