USGCRP Indicators Platform

The USGCRP Indicators Platform is an interagency collaboration that leverages efforts from across the USGCRP agencies and highlights key climate information in the form of indicators.

These indicators provide foundational science in support of USGCRP sustained assessment products including the National Climate Assessment, showcase examples from Federal agency-specific indicator efforts, and connect Federal agency research and science to USGCRP priorities. USGCRP’s Indicators Interagency Working Group maintains this website and provides coordination of indicator efforts across the 14 member agencies of USGCRP.

Indicators are based on observed data that can be used to track and communicate climate-related conditions, trends, and impacts.

Indicators—which may be physical, ecological, health or societal—can be used to assess risks and vulnerabilities and help inform resiliency and adaptation planning in a changing climate.

Go beyond the data and explore climate indicators with an interactive Story Map developed by the USDA Forest Service with support from the Environmental Protection Agency. Explore the climate story through observations including human consequences of climate change, adaptation, and resilience. Examine observed evidence of changes in greenhouse gases, weather and climate, oceans, snow and ice and how these changes can impact health and society.

View the eighteen USGCRP indicators below, or use the filters to search by topic or USGCRP agency

Heavy Precipitation

Measures in the relative amount of annual rainfall delivered by large, single-day precipitation events shows change over time. Extreme precipitation events are defined as days with precipitation in the top 1 percent of all days with precipitation.

Extreme Events Societal Impacts Agriculture & Food Cities & Infrastructure Vulnerability Physical Climate

The graphs show the annual change in latitude (top panel; movement in miles) and depth (middle panel; change in feet) of 64 marine species in the eastern Bering Sea, 53 along the northeastern U.S. coast, and 63 along the southeastern U.S. coast.

Marine Species Distribution

This indicator examines changes in the location of fish, shellfish, and other marine species along U.S. coasts.

Adaptation Coasts Ecosystems & Biodiversity Oceans Vulnerability

The map shows average chlorophyll concentrations for the period 1998–2019. The graphs below the map show trends in chlorophyll concentrations (percent change relative to the 1998–2020 average) for different regions.

Ocean Chlorophyll Concentrations

The concentration of chlorophyll is an indicator for the amount of photosynthetic plankton, or phytoplankton , present in the ocean. Phytoplankton populations are influenced by climatic factors such as sea surface temperatures and winds.

Coasts Ecosystems & Biodiversity International Oceans

The indicator shows the change in global average sea level since 1880, in inches.

Sea Level Rise

Sea level rise is primarily driven by two factors related to climate change. The first factor is “thermal expansion” – as ocean temperatures rise, the water expands. The second factor is melting of land ice (ice sheets and glaciers), which adds water to the world’s oceans.

Oceans Coasts Adaptation Physical Climate Vulnerability

The bars on the graph show the number of degrees by which the average sea surface temperature for each year differs from the average sea surface temperature during the last century.

Sea Surface Temperatures

Over 70% of Earth’s surface area is ocean, which plays a major role in regulating Earth’s climate system. Much of the heat trapped by increasing atmospheric greenhouse gas levels is absorbed by the ocean, causing ocean temperatures to rise.

International Oceans Physical Climate Coasts

Start of Spring

This indicator tracks the start of spring each year. The start of spring occurs on the date when enough heat has accumulated to initiate growth (leafing and flowering) in temperature-sensitive plants.

Adaptation Agriculture & Food Ecosystems & Biodiversity Physical Climate Seasonality

Forests (not including urban forests) accounted for 95% of the terrestrial carbon stored in 2019. In recent years, croplands and grasslands have become net carbon dioxide sources. With the exception of one year since 2009, more carbon dioxide has been released annually than stored in croplands and grasslands.

Terrestrial Carbon Storage

Carbon is stored in living and dead organic matter above and below the ground. Changes in terrestrial (or land-based) ecosystems—for instance, as a result of climate or land use changes—can contribute to changes in carbon storage, which in turn can affect the climate system through the release of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.

Carbon Cycle Ecosystems & Biodiversity Land Use & Land Cover Mitigation

The bars on the graph show the number of degrees by which the average U.S. temperature for each year differs from the average U.S. temperature during the last century.

U.S. Surface Temperatures

This indicator tracks observed changes in temperatures across the contiguous United States. Increasing U.S. temperatures reflect the overall warming trend in the climate system.

Physical Climate Societal Impacts