Thank Germany for Safeguarding U.S. Climate Data

Fearing political interference with American climate data, scientists in Germany are building a safety net for it.

As Mother Jones reports, the German Climate Computing Center in Hamburg is installing new storage to hold backup copies of climate simulations from U.S. scientists, work that feeds the next major United Nations climate assessment. The German Research Foundation has committed roughly $35 million to set up secure repositories, and its leaders cite concern that the Trump administration could block access to research stored in the United States.

That concern has a basis. In 2025, the administration tried to defund and close the Mauna Loa Observatory, home to a decades-long record of atmospheric carbon dioxide, before Congress rejected the cuts. The effort also follows reductions in federal climate research funding and the removal of climate reports from government websites.

Backing up scientific data in another country is highly unusual. Most datasets sit at the institution that produced them, because the world once seemed safe enough that no one saw the need for offsite copies.

Add your name to thank Germany and its scientists for safeguarding this data, and to call on U.S. leaders to protect federal climate datasets and keep them publicly available, so no other country has to step in.

Climate data belongs to everyone who has to plan for what's coming. Germany stepped up to keep it safe. U.S. leaders should make sure it never needs to.