From deadly wildfires to shrinking ice sheets, the signs of climate change are everywhere. These photos show the effects of climate disasters, all of which are made more dangerous as global temperatures warm. Behind each photo are hundreds to billions of lives affected by the immediate and cascading effects of disaster – like waterborne infections after floods, power outages after major storms, and respiratory illness aggravated by smoky air.
Wildfires spark in Los Angeles’ hills
In January 2025, deadly wildfires raged through the hills surrounding Los Angeles, consuming over 16,000 structures and killing at least 28 people.
The risk of wildfire is rising in Southern California and much of the Western U.S. Climate change is making wildfires larger and more intense. A study by World Weather Attribution, an organization that investigates how weather events are affected by climate change, reported that climate change made the fires 35% more likely to occur.
These photos show the Getty Villa museum in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles on a typical day in 2016 and during the 2025 wildfires.
(Image credit: Before photo by kameraworld / Getty Images; After photo by Apu Gomes / Stringer / Getty Images)
Read: Wildfires and climate change: What’s the connection?
Hurricane Ian leaves a path of destruction on Sanibel Island, Florida
Hurricane Ian made landfall in Southwest Florida in late September 2022. The storm killed 149 people in Florida and caused an estimated $119.6 billion in damage.
Climate change is making hurricanes more dangerous. A U.S. Department of Energy study reported that climate change increased the extreme rainfall from Hurricane Ian by 18%, which was “far in excess of what would be expected.”
The satellite images below show Florida’s Sanibel Island before and after Ian barreled through.
(Image source: Both photos via USGS / Public Domain)
Read: How climate change is making hurricanes more dangerous
Visible melting of the Greenland ice sheet
Greenland is home to the second-largest body of ice in the world, the Greenland ice sheet. The Arctic region is warming faster than any other and as it warms, the ice sheet is melting.
If the entire ice sheet were to melt into the ocean, global sea level would rise an estimated 7.2 meters (24 feet). Only three meters (10 feet) of sea level rise would put major coastal cities like Miami and Mumbai underwater.
These satellite images show how the northern part of the ice sheet has melted and weakened between 1987 and 2019. In the 2019 image, the blue color meltwater shows where meltwater is ponding on the surface of the ice. The area of the glacier covered in meltwater in late July 2019 totaled nearly 1 million square kilometers (386,000 square miles) according to NASA. That’s over 100,000 square miles larger than the state of Texas.
(Image credit: Both photos via USGS / Public Domain)
Read: Sea level rise, explained
Smoke envelopes New York City as Canadian wildfires burn
Record-crushing wildfires burned over 17 million hectares (42 million acres) of Canadian forests during the summer of 2023. Smoke from the fires reached as far as Europe.
In early June 2023, over 100 million people in the U.S. lived in areas with poor air quality alerts due to the smoke. New York City was enveloped in an orange haze and had the worst air quality of any city in the world.
The photos below show the Statue of Liberty on a clear day in 2019 and on smoky June 7, 2023.
(Image credit: before photo by David Dee Delgado / Stringer / Getty Images; after photo by Bruce Bennett / Staff / Getty Images)
Read: Air quality resources
Lake Mead dries out during Western U.S. megadrought
The Colorado River basin has been experiencing an intense drought since 2000. Climate change is making droughts more severe, frequent, and longer in the already-arid Southwestern U.S.
Lake Mead, the reservoir formed by the Hoover Dam near Las Vegas, provides water, hydropower, and recreation opportunities for the region. Between 2001 and 2015, the reservoir’s level dropped over 120 feet. The images below show Lake Mead at the beginning and end of that period.
In the 10 years since 2015, the Southwest has continued to struggle with drought. In late July 2022, Lake Mead dropped to its lowest water level since the reservoir was filled. Despite record-breaking rain in the winter of 2024, as of March 2025, the megadrought in the Southwest is ongoing.
(Image credit: Both via USGS / Public Domain)
Read: Climate change and droughts: What’s the connection?
Climate action can save lives
Though climate change is making extreme weather more dangerous, there are many ways that people and communities can prepare. Every degree of global warming that is avoided by reducing pollution can help.
To figure out how to reduce your pollution, check out our solutions hub.
For extreme weather preparation and adaptation tips, check out our extreme weather hub.
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,
‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
fbq(‘init’, ‘568493883318626’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’, {“page_title”:”Before and after photos show the destruction of climate change”,”user_role”:”guest”,”event_url”:”https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2025/03/before-and-after-photos-show-the-destruction-of-climate-change”,”post_type”:”post”,”post_id”:128016});
