The Coast Guard runs the Center for Arctic Study and Policy. This program is built around a region that’s changing fast enough to affect where ships can go, where search-and-rescue happens, and where the Coast Guard itself operates. Don’t take our word for how fast. Below is the actual satellite record of the Arctic’s summer sea ice minimum, year by year since 1985. Drag the timeline yourself.
2025 · 4.60M km²
1985
← drag →
2025
Million square kilometers, Arctic sea ice extent at its annual September minimum. 15 real annual readings plotted, NSIDC Sea Ice Index.
A study and a petition are not the same kind of evidence
One side of this argument points to 88,125 peer-reviewed papers (2012–2020) — 99.9% concluding human activity is the primary driver. The other points to petitions signed by tens of thousands of people, including the 1998 Oregon Petition. These aren’t comparable. A petition is a signature. A peer-reviewed paper is data, method, and analysis that other scientists tried to find fault with before it was allowed to publish, and can still challenge after.
“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.”
— RICHARD FEYNMAN
Well-established
CO2 traps heat — measured directly since Tyndall’s 1859 experiments. See the mechanism →
Venus has a CO2-thick atmosphere and is the hottest planet in the solar system — hotter than Mercury, which is closer to the sun. Distance doesn’t explain that. CO2 does.
Ice cores show CO2 cycled between roughly 180–300 ppm over the last 800,000 years. It’s now above 420 ppm — already outside that entire natural range, reached in a geological instant. Live CO2 data →
The fossil fuel industry’s own internal models from the 1970s predicted the warming that’s since been observed (Science, 2023).
Warmer air holds more water vapor — about 7% more per 1°C. Basic physics, not a projection.
Still being worked out
The exact rate of sea-level rise beyond the next few decades — model spread is genuinely wide. Live trend data →
Precise regional and local impacts — much harder to pin down than global averages.
Whether the total number of hurricanes is increasing — the historical data doesn’t support a clear trend either way (NOAA’s own assessment →). Intensity is a different story: the share of storms reaching Category 3–5 has increased over the past 40 years, though tying that specifically to human-caused warming carries only medium confidence (IPCC AR6, Chapter 11 →).
Read more, directly from the source
Straight from the agencies and societies that publish the underlying data and peer-reviewed research.