The authors of the study said that the removal of the words “climate change” from government websites, and a widespread effort to delete or bury information on climate change programs, would quite likely have a detrimental impact.

“We have found significant loss of public access to information about climate change,” the authors wrote.

“Why are these federal agencies putting so much effort into ‘science cleansing’ instead of using time and resources to fulfill agency responsibilities, such as protecting the environment and advancing energy security?” they wrote. “Removing information regarding climate change from federal websites does not affect the reality of climate change, but may serve to obfuscate the subject and inject doubt regarding the scientific consensus that climate change is happening and that it is caused by human activity.”

The report tracks the Environmental Protection Agency’s removal of hundreds of websites connected to state and local climate change programs; the removal of information about international climate change programs from the State Department, Energy Department and E.P.A. websites; and the deletion of the words “climate change” from websites throughout the federal government.