The most recent minimum (February 2020) and maximum (September 2019) sea ice extents in the Antarctic were below average, but not record lows. Antarctic sea ice has greater year-to-year variability than the Arctic, and little evidence of long-term change.
Cool conditions in Alaska and northern Canada related to a strong polar vortex were not enough to outweigh the extreme warmth across Europe and Asia in February 2020. Both the Northern Hemisphere and the globe as a whole had their second-warmest February on record.
Based on historical climate data from thousands of stations across the United States, these maps show the warmest and coldest daytime high temperatures ever recorded at a given location on March 19—the astronomical first day of spring.
Human activities, mainly burning fossil fuels, are increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, amplifying the natural greenhouse effect and making the pH of the ocean more acidic.
More than 90 percent of the warming that has happened on Earth over the past 50 years has occurred in the ocean. Not all of that heating is detectable yet at the surface.
Although exact temperatures varied by latitude and elevation, January 2020 temperatures were above average for nearly every U.S. climate division of the Lower 48 states.
NOAA’s 14th Arctic Report Card recounts the numerous ways that climate change continues to disrupt the polar region, including massive melt of the Greenland ice sheet and major shifts in the distribution of commercially valuable marine species.
