NOAA State Climate Summaries
Posted by
Molly JohnsonOverview
These NOAA State Climate Summaries were produced in response to a growing demand for state-level information. This tool shares climate summaries based on data from each state in the United States.
These NOAA State Climate Summaries were produced in response to a growing demand for state-level information in the context of the Third National Climate Assessment (NCA) and subsequent sustained activities. They consist of observed and projected climate change information and focus on aspects that are part of NOAA’s mission (mainly characteristics of the physical climate and coastal issues).
The NCA activities derive from the U.S. Global Change Research Act (GCRA) of 1990. One of the activities spelled out in that Act is a quadrennial assessment that “analyzes current trends in global change, both human-inducted and natural, and projects major trends for the subsequent 25 to 100 years.” These state climate summaries support NCA activities and, deriving from the charge in the GCRA, contain information both on historical trends and scientific knowledge about potential future trends.
While the datasets and simulations in these state climate summaries are not, by themselves, new, (they have been previously published in various sources), these documents represent a targeted synthesis of historical and plausible future climate conditions for each U.S. state.
Each summary consists of a description of the historical climate conditions in the state, as well as that of the climate conditions associated with future pathways of greenhouse gas emissions.
Audience
- State-level decision-makers and practitioners