Climate impacts grow, and U.S. must act, says new report

The 4th National Climate Assessment takes the temperature of climate change across the United States. The message? Adapt.

This article was created in partnership with the National Geographic Society.

Today, U.S. government agencies released a heavily anticipated new report about how climate change is impacting the United States. The 4th National Climate Assessment (NCA4) lays out a detailed picture of how communities across the country are already feeling the effects of climate change—from intensified risk of wildfires in California, to droughts slowing agricultural production in Iowa and much more.

The report is the second half of a vast effort by scientists, land managers, public health officials, and others to assess the state of the climate across the U.S. The report's first volume, published in 2017, summarized the state-of-the-art knowledge about how climate is affecting temperatures, water resources, sea-level rise, and other natural systems around the country. The

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