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Winter chill, the extended period of cold temperatures critical for fruit and nut trees, is decreasing at certain sites in California’s Central Valley.

As atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide increase, so do levels in the ocean, part of a process known as “ocean acidification”.

As with global observations, biological impacts consistent with warming have been found in California: shifts in elevational or latitudinal range; changes in the timing of key plant and animal life cycle events; and changes in species abundance and in community composition.

Over the past 45 years, common butterfly species have been appearing in the Central Valley earlier in the spring.

Deaths and illnesses from heat exposure are severely underreported and vary from year to year. They were much higher in 2006 than any other year because of a prolonged heat wave.                                                                                                                 

Lake Tahoe waters are warming in response to warming air temperatures in the Sierra Nevada.

The yearly amount of precipitation over California has become more variable since 1980. With warmer temperatures, more precipitation has fallen as rain than snow in recent years.

Over a 48-year period, California bird species have collectively shifted their winter range northward.