Dan Barrie

A new assessment from a NOAA-led task force has concluded that the unprecedented drought parching the U.S. Southwest since 2020 is not entirely natural. The team found that the record-low precipitation that kicked off the event could have been a fluke—just the rare bad luck of natural variability. But the drought would not have reached its current punishing intensity without the extremely high temperatures brought by human-caused global warming.

The American blue economy, which are resources and services provided by the oceans, contributed about $373 billion to the economy in 2018, and fisheries play a large role in that. Climate change, however, threatens commercial and recreational fisheries; changes in water temperature can affect the environments where fish, shellfish, and other marine species live, and cause them to seek new waters.

Editor's note:  September 1, 2018 Since this article was last updated, the slowdown in the rate of average global surface warming that took place from 1998–2012 (relative to the preceding 30 years)  has unequivocally ended. Scientists have learned more about the physical factors that contributed to the short-term trend, and they have documented the continued build up in sub-surface ocean heat during the period. Check out our latest Q&A on this topic: Did global warming stop in 1998?