Browse by Month
Observing & Predicting
Department:August 1, 2018See highlights from the 2017 issue of the planet's most comprehensive annual physical, the American Meteorological Society's State of the Climate report.
Department:August 1, 2018Global atmospheric carbon dioxide reached 405.0 parts per million (ppm) in 2017, a new record high. In the 1960s, the global growth rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide was roughly 0.6 ppm per year. Over the past decade, however, the growth rate has been closer to 2.3 ppm per year.
Department:August 1, 2018In 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.
Department:August 1, 2018The ocean absorbed a net 2.6 billion tonnes of carbon from human activities, which is 36% higher than the 2005-2015. While ocean carbon uptake slows atmospheric warming, it also continues the trend of ocean acidification, which stresses shell-building creatures and other ocean life.
Department:August 1, 2018The heating imbalance in Earth's oceans reached a new record high in 2017. From 1993–2017, the ocean has accumulated 0.36–0.40 watts of heat per square meter in the top 700 meters and another 0.19–0.35 watts per square meter at depths between 700–2,000 meters.
Department:August 1, 20182017 will likely be the 38th year in a row that, on average, glaciers worldwide have lost ice mass. Cumulative mass losses have accelerated since 2000.
Department:August 1, 2018In 2017, land areas recorded more than 60 days of extreme daytime heat worldwide, nearly double the 1961-1990 average.
Department:August 1, 2018Large areas of severe or extreme drought affected every continent except North America in 2017. Extreme drought conditions affected at least 3 percent of the global land area in every month of 2017.
Department:August 1, 2018Global mean sea level in 2017 was the highest in the satellite record—3 inches (77 millimeters) higher than it was in 1993—and the rate of increase has been accelerating.
Department:August 1, 2018Global temperature in 2017 was the warmest of any non-El Niño year in the instrumental record. Since 1901, the planet’s surface has warmed by an average of 0.7–0.9° Celsius (1.3–1.6° Fahrenheit) per century, but the rate of warming has nearly doubled since 1975 to 1.5–1.8° Celsius (2.7–3.2° Fahrenheit) per century.
Pages
