In late-April 2011, an unusual, post-winter Nor’easter brought much-needed rain the Northeast United States.

Spring storms across Europe and the Mediterranean Sea finally swept away a high pressure system that had been fostering increasingly dry conditions over the Horn of Africa in early 2011.

The average global temperature (land and ocean) for May 2012 was the second warmest May temperature since recordkeeping began in 1880, and the temperature over land surfaces was the warmest on record for May. May 2012 also marks the 327th consecutive month with a global temperature above the 20th-century average.

Climate Science Literacy is an understanding of your influence on climate and climate’s influence on you and society.    People who are climate science literate know that climate science can inform our decisions that improve quality of life. They have a basic understanding of the climate system, including the natural and human-caused factors that affect it. Climate science literate individuals understand how climate observations and records as well as computer modeling contribute to scientific knowledge about climate.

Deke Arndt, Chief of the Climate Monitoring Branch at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center talks about the unusual heat in May 2012.

The average temperature for the United States during May was more than 3 degrees F above the long-term average, making it the second warmest May on record. The month's high temperatures also contributed to the warmest spring, warmest year-to-date, and warmest 12-month period the nation has ever experienced since record keeping began in 1895.

Kristin Laidre, a marine mammal biologist, has taken more than thirty trips to the Arctic, many of them to study the mysterious narwhal. Although the narwhal has appeared in stories throughout history, scientists are just beginning to understand this quirky creature with a fierce survival instinct. But in recent years, a series of unusual events led Laidre to wonder if narwhals are being caught off guard by changes in their unforgiving environment…

NOAA scientists have documented a new impact of the increasingly thin blanket of Arctic sea ice: gases escaping from the thinner ice in spring are affecting air chemistry, reducing ground-level ozone, and likely increasing mercury contamination.

Since the beginning of 2012, drought conditions have worsened along the eastern seaboard, adding to a dry picture for much of the United States.

Since the beginning of 2012, the contiguous United States has been experiencing drier than average conditions. This lack of precipitation is affecting water availability for agriculture and municipal use, as well as increasing concerns about soil quality and wildfires.