EPA Report Shows Impact of Changing Climate on Americans’ Health and the Environment

EPA has released the third edition of a report, Climate Change Indicators in the United States, which was last published in 2012.  The report pulls together observed data on key measures of our environment, including U.S. and global temperature and precipitation, ocean heat and acidity, sea level, length of growing season, and many others. This edition of the report adds additional years of data and four new indicators: Lyme disease, heating and cooling degree days, wildfires, and water level and temperature in the Great Lakes. In addition, the report adds four new features that connect observed data records to local communities and areas of interest, including cherry blossom bloom dates in Washington DC, timing of ice breakup in two Alaskan rivers, temperature and drought in the Southwest, and land loss along the mid-Atlantic coast.  For more information about the report and climate change in general, visit EPA’s web site at:  http://www.epa.gov/climatechange.