State of the climate in 2019

One of the touchpoints of 2019’s climate—the Indian Ocean—may turn the globe upside-down for our North American readership. The body of water, cleaved into distinct halves marked by the strongest Indian Ocean Dipole in more than two decades, behaved as something of a center of gravity in this report, as many of the extremes and related phenomena seemed to emanate from it. The strength of its signal was seen throughout the system and throughout this report: in nuisance flooding and unusual chlorophyll concentrations in and around the basin; in unprecedented tropical cyclone activity in the Arabian Sea; as historic fire and drought in Australia; and in back-to-back devastating tropical cyclones in southeast Africa.