Understanding Climate

In the 2015 edition of the State of the Climate report, climate and biology experts wrote about some dramatic impacts of warming on life in the ocean.

Answers to some of the questions that readers frequently ask NOAA experts about El Niño and La Niña.

NOAA's Climate Prediction Center monitors and issues outlooks for El Niño and La Niña using a 2-category (watch/advisory) alert system.

With this year's ongoing El Niño event, parts of East Africa may be ripe for a potential outbreak of Rift Valley Fever. See how government agencies are using climate data to help predict, and hopefully prevent, an outbreak of this deadly mosquito-borne virus that affects both people and valuable livestock.

High-tide "nuisance flooding" has increased between 300 and 925 percent since the 1960s as a result of sea level rise. In this Q&A, Billy Sweet and John Marra explain the changes and offer projections for the remainder of the 2015-16 monitoring year.

Plants on land have helped slow global warming by capturing nearly a quarter of the carbon dioxide that human activities release in an average year. But where is it all going?

Globally, carbon emissions from fires were near the long-term average in 2014, but North America's emissions were 70% higher than average.

While slightly wetter than 2013, the global average soil moisture in 2014 was near-normal.

Scientists estimated global average carbon dioxide concentration at 397.2 parts per million (ppm) in 2014, as the global growth rate of carbon dioxide continues to accelerate. 

Depending on the data set, 2014 was either the warmest or tied-for-warmest year since records began in the mid-to-late 1800s.