2015 Climate Change

201512

The unusual warmth of December seems like a distant memory after this weekend’s blizzard on the east coast. However NOAA’s most recent State of the Climate report revealed that 2015 was the Earth’s warmest year by the widest margin on record. The globally averaged temperature over land and ocean surfaces for 2015 was the highest among all years since record keeping began in 1880, and the December combined global land and ocean average surface temperature was the highest on record for any month in the 136-year period.

Explore our reports on climate change to learn more. All are free to download.

Climate Change: Evidence and Causes

Climate Change: Evidence and Causes is a jointly produced publication of The US National Academy of Sciences and The Royal Society. Written by a UK-US team of leading climate scientists and reviewed by climate scientists and others, the …

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Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change: Anticipating Surprises

Climate is changing, forced out of the range of the past million years by levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases not seen in the Earth’s atmosphere for a very, very long time. Lacking action by the world’s nations, it is clear that …

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Linkages Between Arctic Warming and Mid-Latitude Weather Patterns: Summary of a Workshop

The Arctic has been undergoing significant changes in recent years. Average temperatures are rising twice as fast as they are elsewhere in the world. The extent and thickness of sea ice is rapidly declining. Such changes may have an impact on …

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Climate Intervention: Reflecting Sunlight to Cool Earth

The growing problem of changing environmental conditions caused by climate destabilization is well recognized as one of the defining issues of our time. The root problem is greenhouse gas emissions, and the fundamental solution is curbing those …

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Climate Intervention: Carbon Dioxide Removal and Reliable Sequestration

The signals are everywhere that our planet is experiencing significant climate change. It is clear that we need to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from our atmosphere if we want to avoid greatly increased risk of …

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