The Best Climate Change News Pictures of 2014

Beginning in 2014, the Environmental and Energy Study Institute's (EESI) weekly newsletter Climate Change News began offering a picture each week to visually illustrate climate change and its far reaching effects. We've selected a few of the ones we found most powerful to showcase some of the major headlines from the past year. 

This image was shown December 19. It is one of the first global maps created using data from the new National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) satellite, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2, which has been in orbit since July. The image shows increased carbon dioxide from biomass burning in the Southern Hemisphere. Image courtesy of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

 

 

This image is from December 15, the week United Nations (UN) climate talks in Lima, Peru took place. Secretary of State John Kerry is shown speaking. This was the 20th Conference of the Parties (COP 20); there is much anticipation for next year's COP21 in Paris. Image courtesy of the State Department.

 

 

This is an image of new video released November 17 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) showing how carbon dioxide (CO2) moves through the atmosphere.  Image courtesy of NASA. Click here to watch the video.

 

 

On November 12, US President Obama and China President Xi Jinping announced a new climate deal, with historic greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets. Image courtesy US Embassy. 

 

 

Ice Watch by Olafur Eliasson and Minik Rosing, City Hall Square, Copenhagen. Image by Anders Sune Berg.

These are twelve pieces of ice, calved from the Greenland ice sheet and weighing a collective 100 metric tons, which were on display October 26-29. They are arranged in the shape of a clock to mark the occasion of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 5th Assessment Report on Climate Change. See website for more details.

 

 

This image shows the global average temperature in September 2014, which was the hottest September ever recorded. Image courtesy of NASA/GISS.

 

 

This image, taken September 27, shows 35,000 Pacific walruses beached 5 miles away from Point Lay, Alaska, due to a lack of sea ice. Photo courtesy of the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA)/AP Photo, Corey Accardo.

 

 

This image, taken September 23, shows protesters in the Climate March in New York City, courtesy of People's Climate March. Nearly 400,000 people, including former Vice President Al Gore, actor Leonardo Dicaprio and United Nations (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, participated in the protest.