Using a combination of observations and models, NOAA-funded scientists have found a small but significant “advanced warning” signal for heightened summer tornado activity in the U.S.: warmer-than-average water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico
The tropical Pacific has cooled since the end of El Niño this spring, but the pace of cooling had slowed as of August.
Climate experts are keeping their eyes on the tropical Pacific, watching a strip of cool water that may be one indicator that La Niña is brewing.
A checkerboard of drought conditions has developed across the United States east of the Rockies between spring and summer 2016. Since March, the total drought-affected area of the country has nearly doubled.
Globally, 2015 set a new record for the most extremely warm days in the 66-year record (1.8 times more than the average). The number of extremely warm days and nights was the highest ever recorded in western North America, parts of central Europe, and central Asia.
2015 was a tough year for vegetation, both natural and agricultural, with a near-record area of global land surfaces in some state of drought.
Using measurements taken worldwide, scientists estimated that 2015’s global average carbon dioxide concentration was 399.4 parts per million (ppm), a new record high. At Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawai’i, where atmospheric carbon dioxide has been recorded longer than anywhere else in the world, the annual average carbon dioxide concentration was 400.8—also a new record, and a new milestone.
In 2015, glaciers across the globe, on average, continued to shrink for the 36th consecutive year.
Ocean heat storage has increased substantially since 1993, hitting a record high in 2015, according to the State of the Climate in 2015 report. Ocean warming accounts for over 90% of the warming in Earth’s climate system.