Every four years the federal government is required by law to produce a “National Climate Assessment” which, in addition to creating perpetual employment for a few hundred bureaucrats, give said bureaucrats the opportunity to empty their personal Anxiety Closets in public view. This report is due this month and because Donald Trump is president, the flotsam and jetsam from Anxiety Closets is remarkably high:

The report concludes that even if humans immediately stopped emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the world would still feel at least an additional 0.50 degrees Fahrenheit (0.30 degrees Celsius) of warming over this century compared with today. The projected actual rise, scientists say, will be as much as 2 degrees Celsius.
…
The study examines every corner of the United States and finds that all of it was touched by climate change. The average annual temperature in the United States will continue to rise, the authors write, making recent record-setting years “relatively common” in the near future. It projects increases of 5.0 to 7.5 degrees Fahrenheit (2.8 to 4.8 degrees Celsius) by the late century, depending on the level of future emissions.

It says the average annual rainfall across the country has increased by about 4 percent since the beginning of the 20th century. Parts of the West, Southwest and Southeast are drying up, while the Southern Plains and the Midwest are getting wetter.

I don’t intend to get into a discussion on the bogus nature of “climate models” and “scientific consensus” and on and on. If you want to believe that a) people are causing climate change, and b) that climate change models are more accurate than reading the entrails of a goat, and c) predicting the future is possible, and d) that 2 degrees difference temperature means Armageddon and e) even if all of that is true that man has the ability to fine tune the climate, this isn’t Google, you’re free to believe it. And because we’re not Google, no one will be required to take that view seriously.

Naturally, like anything else concerning ‘climate science,’ the real agenda is politics:

The report was completed this year and is a special science section of the National Climate Assessment, which is congressionally mandated every four years. The National Academy of Sciences has signed off on the draft report, and the authors are awaiting permission from the Trump administration to release it.
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“It’s a fraught situation,” said Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geoscience and international affairs at Princeton University who was not involved in the study. “This is the first case in which an analysis of climate change of this scope has come up in the Trump administration, and scientists will be watching very carefully to see how they handle it.”

Scientists say they fear that the Trump administration could change or suppress the report. But those who challenge scientific data on human-caused climate change say they are equally worried that the draft report, as well as the larger National Climate Assessment, will be publicly released.

Or, as the NYT promoted the article:

To ensure the vile Trump administration doesn’t suppress the report, the NYT provides a link to the report.

The report they are so fearful the public will not see has been available online since December and was open for public comment from December 15, 2016, through February 3, 2017.

In fact, people active on the report and asking why this is even a story:

Good golly, BBC asked me if I leaked our climate sci report to the media. I said, NO–why bother?! It was publicly available during review.

— Prof. Katharine Hayhoe (@KHayhoe) August 8, 2017

Side-by-side comparison shows that @nytimes has public review version of our new climate sci report – so, no leak. It was available to all.

— Prof. Katharine Hayhoe (@KHayhoe) August 8, 2017

It's not clear what the news is in this story; posted draft is public review draft from Dec, and WH review hasn't yet missed Aug 18 deadline https://t.co/0sZxCCvoMn

— Bob Kopp (@bobkopp) August 8, 2017

What you are actually seeing by the NYT is an exercise in click-baiting on an epic scale. They give the impression that they are in possession of a leaked report but they are very careful not to say the report is leaked. The evidence that anyone is concerned that this report will be “suppressed” is not given attribution. The fact of the matter is that the only way the Trump administration could “suppress” a report that has been on the internet for nearly nine months and widely circulated within government and academia would be to engage in time travel. Though, admittedly, using time travel to eliminate the report would be little more outlandish than a lot of other criticisms that have been lodged against the administration.