Climate Shift Index Alerts

Using the Climate Shift Index system and map tool, Climate Central issues alerts when there’s a notable extreme weather event around the world that was made more likely by human-caused climate change (although not in every instance). We also produce retrospective analyses to track the local influence of climate change.

Past Climate Shift Index alerts

About the Climate Shift Index

Climate Central’s Climate Shift Index, grounded in the latest peer-reviewed science, maps the influence of climate change on temperatures across the globe, every day. 

Climate Shift Index levels indicate how much human-caused climate change has altered the frequency of daily temperatures at a particular location. Level 1 indicates that climate change is detectable in that day’s temperature. Level 2 means that climate change made exceptionally warm temperatures in a given location at least twice as likely. Level 5 is the maximum and indicates temperatures at least 5 times more likely because of climate change.

For these analyses, forecast temperatures come from NOAA’s Global Forecast System model, and past actual temperatures come from the ERA5 dataset.