Understanding Climate

The Global Climate Dashboard provides one-stop access to information, maps, and graphs of key indicators of our global climate. Interactive graphs provide a system-wide view of the state of natural patterns like El Niño and the Arctic Oscillation and those linked to human-caused climate change, such as sea level rise and greenhouse gases. 

International, authoritative climate report states 2018 was the fourth warmest year on record.

From declining reindeer populations to a younger, thinner ice pack, here are four image-based stories from the 2018 Arctic Report Card. 

From heat waves to heavy rain, the National Climate Assessment's recently updated collection of indicators shows how climate is changing.

Costly and inconvenient, high-tide flooding of coastal communities is on the rise. Thanks to higher water levels from El Niño and sea level rise, the number of high-tide flood days in 2018 is projected to be 60% higher this year than would have been common around 2000. Find out what's predicted for your city in this interactive map.

As part of the State of the Climate in 2017 report, experts describe a record three-year-long episode of mass coral bleaching at tropical reefs worldwide. Previous global bleaching events required the presence of El Niño, but the devastating 2014–2017 event began before El Niño emerged and continued long after it ended—implicating human-caused global warming in the mass die offs.

The State of the Climate in 2017 report includes a summary of the devastation in Puerto Rico from Hurricane María, describing damage so widespread and severe that thousands of residents of the Caribbean island moved to the U.S. mainland in the aftermath. 

In a sidebar to the State of the Climate in 2017 report,  experts describe how human-caused climate change is leading to longer, more damaging fire seasons in the evergreen-dominated boreal forests of Alaska, Canada, and Eurasia. 

See highlights from the 2017 issue of the planet's most comprehensive annual physical, the American Meteorological Society's State of the Climate report. 

Our interactive map shows the latest date of measurable snow recorded at thousands of U.S. weather stations, based on data through April 11, 2018.