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Climate Change Indicators in the United States
Related Links
NASA - Global Climate Change: NASA's Eyes on the Earth
NOAA - Global Climate Dashboard
NOAA - Annual State of the Climate Report
NOAA - Arctic Change Indicators
State of California - Indicators of Climate Change in California
You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader, available as a free download, to view some of the files on this page. See EPA's PDF page to learn more about PDF, and for a link to the free Acrobat Reader.
Collecting and interpreting environmental indicators play a critical role in our understanding of climate change and its causes. An indicator represents the state of certain environmental conditions over a given area and a specified period of time. Examples of climate change indicators include temperature, precipitation, sea level, and greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.
EPA's Climate Change Indicators in the United States (PDF) (80 pp, 13.3MB) report will help readers interpret a set of important indicators to better understand climate change. The report presents 24 indicators, each describing trends related to the causes and effects of climate change. It focuses primarily on the United States, but in some cases global trends are presented to provide context or a basis for comparison. EPA will use these indicators to examine long-term data sets to:
- Track the effects/impacts of climate change in the United States
- Assist decision–makers on how to best use policymaking and program resources to respond to climate change
- Assist EPA and its constituents in evaluating the success of their climate change efforts
Climate Change Indicators in the United States Report
Climate Change Indicators Slide Show (PDF) (27 pp, 1.0MB)
Full Report (PDF) (80 pp, 13.3MB)
Individual Sections:
- Front cover, table of contents, and acknowledgments (PDF) (4 pp, 1.6MB)
- Introduction (PDF) (3 pp, 1.0MB)
- Summary of Key Findings (PDF) (4 pp, 1.0MB)
- Greenhouse Gases (PDF) (12 pp, 4.7MB)
- Weather and Climate (PDF) (14 pp, 3.3MB)
- Oceans (PDF) (10 pp, 3.1MB)
- Snow and Ice (PDF) (12 pp, 3.6MB)
- Society and Ecosystems (PDF) (12 pp, 5.1MB)
- Conclusion (PDF) (1 pg, 996K)
- Resources, endnotes, and back cover (PDF) (8 pp, 1.1MB)
Technical Information about Indicators (PDF) (150 pp, 624K)
For more information and/or to contact EPA about the Climate Change Indicators in the United States report, please e-mail climateindicators@epa.gov.
For more information about environmental indicators, view EPA's Report on the Environment.
