The Trump administration terminated the US National Climate Assessment last year by eliminating funding and removing reports from public access, despite these assessments being legally mandated. In response, the American Geophysical Union and American Meteorological Society established the "US Climate Collection" as a decentralised alternative, inviting researchers to publish peer-reviewed papers that will feed into future climate reports. This initiative is significant because it preserves critical climate research and creates a community-driven resource when federal coordination has been withdrawn.

The Collection's first contribution is a paper authored by 149 researchers (many previously working on the National Assessment) published simultaneously in journals operated by both professional societies. The paper serves as a research roadmap, identifying priority areas including improvements in climate modelling with machine learning and finer spatial resolution, accounting for recent policy changes and renewable energy deployment, and developing regional analyses similar to past National Climate Assessments. Unlike the centralised federal model, this approach could allow analyses to extend beyond US borders into neighbouring regions like Canada.