The Physical Science Basis
The Working Group I contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report addresses the most up-to-date physical understanding of the climate system and climate change, bringing together the latest advances in climate science, and combining multiple lines of evidence from paleoclimate, observations, process understanding, and global and regional climate simulations.
The Summary for Policymakers (SPM) provides a high-level summary of the understanding of the current state of the climate, including how it is changing and the role of human influence, and the state of knowledge about possible climate futures, climate information relevant to regions and sectors, and limiting human-induced climate change.
Download SPM Download Citation Download Headline StatementThe Technical Summary (TS) is designed to bridge between the comprehensive assessment of the Working Group I Chapters and its Summary for Policymakers (SPM). It is primarily built from the Executive Summaries of the individual chapters and atlas and provides a synthesis of key findings based on multiple lines of evidence.
DownloadFrequently Asked Questions (FAQs) explain important processes and aspects that are relevant to the whole report for a broad audience and help to interpret the report. They are related to the Chapter they are assigned to, but can be relevant to multiple Chapters.
DownloadSlides presented at the 9 August 2021 press briefing and a slide deck containing the Headline Statements and figures from the Summary for Policymakers.
Regional fact sheets are an outreach product that is fully traceable to the chapters, the Technical Summary and the Interactive Atlas. They constitute an entry point for regionalized information in the AR6 Working Group I report. (11 fact sheets)
The novel AR6 Working Group I Interactive Atlas allows for a flexible spatial and temporal analysis of both data-driven climate change
information and assessment findings in the report. It includes two components:
The Regional Information component provides access to climate change information (variables and derived indices) from the
main datasets used in the report.
The Regional Synthesis component allows the exploration of key synthesized assessments building on multiple lines of
evidence across the Working Group I reference regions. This component supports the SPM and is being updated to align
with the final approval version (to be presented in late September).
Link to the Interactive Atlas
Click on ‘Datasets’ under Related Records to view the catalogue records for each SPM figure and to access the corresponding data. The Abstract field of these catalogue records contains detailed information about the data, including how it should be cited. The data is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Data for SPM figures