From an usually active hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico to record-breaking wildfires in California, the planet endured a lot in 2017.
Take a look back at some of the biggest environmental changes, events, and catastrophes from the year through these 15 impactful images.
California's Oroville dam — the tallest in the United States — collapsed in February.
From 2011 to 2016, California underwent the worst drought the state had seen in 1,200 years. But after an unprecedented amount of rain in late 2016 and early 2017, the Oroville area's water levels began to rise.
In early February, the Oroville dam reached water-level capacity, which caused a giant hole to open in the middle of the spillway.
After the dam collapsed, authorities ordered the evacuation of nearly 200,000 residents in several northern California towns.
Early 2017 temperatures ranked as the hottest in 122 years for the contiguous US.
From April 2016 to March 2017, the US went through an unusually warm period that brought record-high temperatures to the Lower 48 states (everywhere but Alaska and Hawaii), according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
As The Washington Post noted, over that time period, the country's average temperature was 3.02 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the 20th-century average.
Rising concentrations of greenhouse gases caused the temperature increase. A study published in December suggested that by 2100, the planet may get 15% hotter than scientists previously thought.
A groundbreaking study warned that continuing to burn fossil fuels at the current rate could bring atmospheric carbon dioxide to its highest concentration in 50 million years.
According to the study published in April, if the world continues to emit greenhouse gases at its current pace, the global climate could reach a warming state in 2100 that scientists don't think the world has seen in the past 420 million years.
This fall, the Trump administration took steps towards repealing the Clean Power Plan, which was established in 2015 to reduce the US' carbon-dioxide emissions.
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