Climate Change Indicators in the United States

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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