Increases text size and reading space while preserving content.
Same climate evidence. More ways to use it.
We are building the Climate Collaboration website, Climate Observatory, and staff workspace toward a WCAG 2.1 AA baseline and WCAG 2.2 AA where applicable. Accessibility work is treated as a release gate, not a cosmetic add-on.
This page describes a target and current implementation. It is not a claim of formal certification or independent conformance. Screen-reader and exact-release acceptance testing remain part of the work.
Access options
The “Make this easier to use” controls can change presentation in this browser without changing the underlying data.
Increases separation between text, controls, borders, and backgrounds.
Reduces nonessential decoration and keeps reading widths calmer.
Suppresses nonessential transitions and stops Observatory auto-spin when supported.
Prioritizes structured data where an equivalent exists. Scientific values are not simplified or changed.
Climate Observatory accessibility
The map remains an important scientific visualization, but essential evidence should not exist only as color, hover, map position, or pointer interaction.
- The active station-derived climate evidence can be opened as a searchable table from More → Climate data table.
- The table uses the same current station-derived cell surface as the map and follows the selected period and temperature unit.
- Table rows expose cell/location, trend, period, contributing station count, source, and a keyboard-operable path to the existing cell-detail evidence.
- The legend includes a machine-readable explanation of the metric, period, units, cooling/no-change/warming meaning, and insufficient-data state.
- Cell details retain station evidence, source/method information, and public data-quality context.
- Missing or unsupported areas are not filled merely to make the map look complete.
Keyboard, mobile, and reflow
| Area | Current approach |
|---|---|
| Keyboard | Native controls, visible focus, Escape handling for dialogs/panels, and non-map routes to climate evidence. |
| Touch | Practical 44–48px control targets and mobile drawer/dialog patterns. |
| Zoom/reflow | Browser and pinch zoom are not disabled. Dense data tables intentionally scroll when a single-column reflow would remove meaning. |
| Motion | System reduced-motion preferences and the local reduced-motion option suppress nonessential movement. |
| High contrast | Visible focus, stronger-contrast preference, and forced-colors-compatible control treatment are included in the shared layer. |
What is still being acceptance-tested
- VoiceOver + Safari and NVDA + Chrome/Firefox task testing.
- Exact 320px, 360px, 390px, tablet, desktop, and 200% zoom/reflow evidence.
- Full legend and visualization review for common color-vision deficiencies, grayscale, and forced-colors mode.
- Search-location, map, table, and detail synchronization across U.S., Canadian, worldwide, sparse-evidence, and no-data cases.
- Document/PDF accessibility where source documents are retained.
Need another format or found a barrier?
Send the page, task, document, or climate evidence you were trying to use, along with what made it difficult. We can use that report to reproduce and correct the issue.