• U.S. Most Widely Felt Earthquake: 10 Years On

    Ten years ago, millions of people throughout the eastern U.S. felt shaking from a magnitude 5.8 earthquake near Mineral, Virginia. No lives were lost, and it was not the strongest earthquake to have occurred in the eastern U.S., let alone the western U.S., but the Virginia earthquake was likely felt by more people than any earthquake in North America’s history.

  • Small Modular Reactors May Mitigate Climate Change

    The consequences of carbon emissions from the large-scale burning of fossil fuels are all around us, from relentless wildfires to scorching heatwaves to devastating floods to destructive megadroughts. There is renewed interest in nuclear energy, specifically in the new generation of small modular reactors.

  • Artificial Intelligence Helps Unlock Extreme Weather Mysteries

    A new machine learning approach helps scientists understand why extreme precipitation days in the Midwest are becoming more frequent. It could also help scientists better predict how these and other extreme weather events will change in the future.

  • Urban Development and Greenhouses Gasses Will Fuel Urban Floods

    When rain began falling in northern Georgia on September 15, 2009, little did Atlantans know that they would witness epic flooding throughout the city. Researchers are asking whether a combination of urban development and climate change fueled by greenhouse gasses could bring about comparable scenarios in other U.S. cities. Based on a new study, the answer is yes.

  • How Do Floods Become a Disaster?

    Since the 1990s, the number of fatalities from river floods has declined worldwide, but the amount of damage has risen sharply. Researchers attribute the decline in casualties to improved flood warning, technical protection measures and heightened hazard awareness.

  • It’s Official: July Was Earth’s Hottest Month on Record

    New global data show that July was the world’s hottest month ever recorded. The combined land and ocean-surface temperature was 1.67 degrees F (0.93 of a degree C) above the 20th-century average of 60.4 degrees F (15.8 degrees C), making it the hottest July since records began 142 years ago.

  • Fire Today Will Impact Water Tomorrow

    The effects of wildfire don’t end when the flames go out. There can be environmental consequences for years to come—and keeping an eye on water is key.

  • Small Towns Should Focus on Resilience

    With heatwaves, bushfires, and floods, small towns and their surrounding communities have confronted a combination of successive disasters fueled by climate change. And it’s predicted to only get worse. “So, the challenge for all of us, but particularly areas at increasing risk of climate-fueled disasters, is to get ahead of what’s coming,” says one expert. “We need to ask: what we can do to reduce or even prevent some of these disasters from happening?”

  • Earthquake Forecasts a Step Closer to Reality

    Earthquakes — like lightning — strike unpredictably. For decades, scientists have struggled to reliably give forecasts for major earthquake hotspots, but now, an international team of scientists has embarked on a new initiative to do just that.

  • Flood Risks in Germany Were Clearly Underestimated

    Expert say that to better estimate flood risks, risk maps should also consider historical data. The floods which devastated Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia caused 15 confirmed deaths, with more than two dozen people still unaccounted for. The damage is estimated at more than EUR 10 billion.

  • Middle-Class Residents Prefer to Stay Put after Floodwaters Recede

    Flood disasters lead some people to move far from the places they had called home. A new study finds that middle-class people who made long-term plans to stay in their neighborhoods before they flooded are less likely to relocate even if they suffered significant damage.

  • Global Warming Increased U.S. Crop Insurance Losses by $27 Billion in 27 Years

    Higher temperatures attributed to climate change caused payouts from the nation’s biggest farm support program to increase by $27 billion between 1991 and 2017, according to new estimates from Stanford researchers. Costs are likely to rise even further with the growing intensity and frequency of heat waves and other severe weather events.

  • Action Essential to Protect Water Security from Climate Impacts

    A new report says that urgent action is needed to protect global water security from the impacts of climate and climate change.

  • July: U.S. West Hit with Extreme Heat, Drought, Unrelenting Wildfires

    July was an exceptional month of triple threats in the western United States: record heat, drought and raging wildfires. Other parts of the country saw extreme rainfall. The average temperature last month across the contiguous U.S. was 75.5 degrees F (1.9 degrees above average).

  • Dire Outlook on Global Warming: IPCC

    The IPCC warns that in twenty years, the world will likely reach — and even surpass — the 1.5-degree Celsius warming threshold that scientists have predicted will lead to irreversible changes such as melting glaciers, rising sea levels, and devastating floods and droughts around the world.