ReportNovember 4, 2024

U.S. Temperature Attribution Overview: October 2024

Analysis: How climate change boosted United States temperatures in October 2024

Using Climate Central’s Climate Shift Index (CSI) tool to measure the impact of climate change on daily temperatures across the United States, as well as NOAA’s Applied Climate Information System (ACIS) to find daily temperature information, we have compiled a high-level overview of how climate change has affected temperature trends in October in cities across the United States. Download full report (PDF)

1. High level findings (download local data, including monthly precipitation)

October 2024 monthly attribution report, figure 1
Figure 1. Threaded ACIS temperature anomalies for October 2024  relative to the 1991-2020 standard normal period. Analysis based on ACIS data.
October 2024 monthly attribution report, figure 2
Figure 2. Days with a CSI of 3 or higher for October 2024 for ACIS threaded stations. Analysis based on ERA5 data (October 1-29) and GFS data (October 30-31).

2. Local temperature anomaly analysis (download local data, including monthly precipitation)

3. Local Climate Shift Index analysis (download local data, including monthly precipitation)

Methods

Calculating the Climate Shift Index

All Climate Shift Index (CSI) levels reported in this brief are based on daily average temperatures and  ERA5 data from October 1 to October 26, 2024, and GFS data from October 27 to October 30, 2024. See the frequently asked questions for details on computing the Climate Shift Index, including a summary of the multi-model approach described in Gilford et al. (2022).

City Analysis

We analyzed 191 Applied Climate Information System (ACIS) stations associated with U.S. cities. For each city, we found the CSI time series from the nearest 0.25° grid cell. We calculated the number of days at CSI levels 2, 3, 4, and 5. We used ACIS data to find the average monthly temperatures, temperature anomalies, and precipitation information, and to derive average monthly warming trends for each city.

Click here for more information about the Climate Shift Index

Major funding provided by the Bezos Earth Fund and The Schmidt Family Foundation.