Climate Change Web Portal

NOAA Climate Change Web Portal

How climate changes in response to increases in man-made greenhouse gases is one of the foremost questions for the scientific community, policy makers and the general public.

A key approach for examining climate, especially how it will change in the future, uses complex computer models of the climate system that include atmosphere, ocean, sea ice and land components. Some models also include additional aspects of the earth system, including chemistry and biology.

The Climate Change Portal is a web interface developed by the NOAA/ESRL Physical Sciences Division to access and display the immense volumes of climate and earth system model output that informed the recently released Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). Users can access two components of the portal that focus on:

The portal was designed with the idea that more variables, experiments, statistics, and features can be added in the future.

Partners

US Army Corps of Engineers

Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences

NOAA Fisheries

Bureau of Reclamation

Sample map showing changes in the mean sea surface temperature for the latter half of the 21st century. The ocean warming is greatest in the northern Hemisphere where changes are more than 3 celsius. Weaker warming is seen in the North Atlantic and the Southern Ocean.