The Trump administration is forcing the Environmental Protection Agency to delete all of its pages on climate change.

The move comes as part of a much broader crackdown on postings by all agencies who track the effects of global warming on the environment. All of those organisations – as well as others, like the National Parks Service – have been banned from talking to the public by the US government.

Now scientists are scrambling to save some of the most important parts of the EPA's website before they are deleted off the internet entirely.

Trump comments on Paris Climate deal

"If the website goes dark, years of work we have done on climate change will disappear," one official told Reuters soon after the order to shut down the website was sent.

10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Show all 10 1 /10 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A group of emperor penguins face a crack in the sea ice, near McMurdo Station, Antarctica Kira Morris 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Floods destroyed eight bridges and ruined crops such as wheat, maize and peas in the Karimabad valley in northern Pakistan, a mountainous region with many glaciers. In many parts of the world, glaciers have been in retreat, creating dangerously large lakes that can cause devastating flooding when the banks break. Climate change can also increase rainfall in some areas, while bringing drought to others. Hira Ali 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Smoke – filled with the carbon that is driving climate change – drifts across a field in Colombia. Sandra Rondon 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Amid a flood in Islampur, Jamalpur, Bangladesh, a woman on a raft searches for somewhere dry to take shelter. Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable places in the world to sea level rise, which is expected to make tens of millions of people homeless by 2050. Probal Rashid 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Sindh province in Pakistan has experienced a grim mix of two consequences of climate change. “Because of climate change either we have floods or not enough water to irrigate our crop and feed our animals,” says the photographer. “Picture clearly indicates that the extreme drought makes wide cracks in clay. Crops are very difficult to grow.” Rizwan Dharejo 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Hanna Petursdottir examines a cave inside the Svinafellsjokull glacier in Iceland, which she said had been growing rapidly. Since 2000, the size of glaciers on Iceland has reduced by 12 per cent. Tom Schifanella 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A river once flowed along the depression in the dry earth of this part of Bangladesh, but it has disappeared amid rising temperatures. Abrar Hossain 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A shepherd moves his herd as he looks for green pasture near the village of Sirohi in Rajasthan, northern India. The region has been badly affected by heatwaves and drought, making local people nervous about further predicted increases in temperature. Riddhima Singh Bhati 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A factory in China is shrouded by a haze of air pollution. The World Health Organisation has warned such pollution, much of which is from the fossil fuels that cause climate change, is a “public health emergency”. Leung Ka Wa 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Water levels in reservoirs, like this one in Gers, France, have been getting perilously low in areas across the world affected by drought, forcing authorities to introduce water restrictions. Mahtuf Ikhsan

The employees were notified by EPA officials on Tuesday that the administration had instructed EPA's communications team to remove the website's climate change page, which contains links to scientific global warming research, as well as detailed data on emissions. The pages could go down as early as Wednesday, the sources said.

The Trump administration appears to be engaged in a much broader effort to remove information on global warming from the internet. It took down all reference to the phenomenon on the White House page, replacing it with an energy policy that committed to scrap Barack Obama's landmark climate plan and limit the remit of the EPA.

It has led to worries that Mr Trump, who doesn't believe that climate change exists, will look to put a stop to scientific work that shows the effect of human activity on global warming. Mr Trump has claimed that global warming isn't real and was made up as a Chinese hoax to keep American companies uncompetitive.

Myron Ebell, who helped guide the EPA's transition after Trump was elected in November until he was sworn in last week, told Reuters that the move was not surprising.

"My guess is the web pages will be taken down, but the links and information will be available," he said. It's not clear whether that means that the pages will be archived or that they will be made available in another form.

Climate change: It's "game over" for planet earth