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Climate change is already having an impact on every part of the US, according to a doom-laden report published by the Obama administration.

The third US National Climate Assessment, released today, says the number and strength of extreme weather events have increased over the past 50 years.

The report is expected to guide the actions of President Barack Obama, who has indicated he aims to make the issue a defining part of his last two years in office.

The US National Climate Assessment says that climate change is already having an effect on every part of the US. This map shows percent increases in the amount of precipitation falling in very heavy events from 1958 to 2012 for each region of the continental US

His influence will be vital in creating a successor to the Kyoto Protocol next year, when the United Nations aims to set legally binding targets for every country to reduce carbon emissions at a summit in Paris.

President Obama is set to use the paper to convince the American public on the need for a crackdown on greenhouse gas emissions.

The report, compiled by 300 experts and released by the White House, said: 'Climate change, once considered an issue for a distant future, has moved firmly into the present.

'Corn producers in Iowa, oyster growers in Washington State, and maple syrup producers in Vermont are all observing climate-related changes that are outside of recent experience.'

More than half the US population lives in coastal areas that are 'increasingly vulnerable' to the effects of climate change, the report said.

And efforts to cut emissions so far are 'insufficient to avoid increasingly negative social, environmental, and economic consequences', it concluded.

This photo shows the cracked-dry bed of the Almaden Reservoir in San Jose, California. Global warming is rapidly turning America the beautiful into America the stormy, sneezy and dangerous, according to a new federal scientific report

This graph shows observed global average changes (black line) in the climate, model simulations using only changes in natural factors like solar and volcanic (green) and model simulations with the addition of human-induced emissions (blue). Such changes since 1950 cannot be explained by natural factors or variability and can only be explained by human factors, says the report

The 800-page report says the consequences of climate change are hitting on several fronts, including health, infrastructure, water supply, agriculture and especially in more frequent severe weather such as floods and droughts.

It added: 'Global climate change is projected to continue to change over this century and beyond, but there is still time to act to limit the amount of change and the extent of damaging impacts.'

John Podesta, an adviser to President Obama, said the report includes 'a huge amount of practical, usable knowledge that state and local decision-makers can take advantage of as they plan on or for the impacts of climate change and work to make their communities more resilient'.

He added: 'This assessment is about presenting actionable science.'

Vicki Arroyo, executive director of the Georgetown Climate Center of Georgetown University, said: 'You really can't just provide a report that paints this dark picture of all these impacts.

'You have to couple it with a message of what our government can do about it, what you can do about it and what our communities can do.'

Water splashes over the Center Street Dam in the swollen Des Moines River in downtown Des Moines, Iowa. Climate change's assorted harms are expected to become increasingly disruptive across the nation throughout this century and beyond, the National Climate Assessment concluded Tuesday

The report echoes the message of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which last month published the final part in a trilogy of reports into the science, impact and solutions to global warming.

The first part, published last September, found that scientists are 95 per cent certain that humans are the 'dominant cause' of global warming.

The second part, published in March, warned that the drastic impacts of climate change are 'already occurring on all continents and across the oceans'.

The final part, published in April on the options for mitigating global warming, warned that a rapid shift to wind and solar power is needed before 2030.