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Insurance for a Changing Climate
Among the many facets of the economy being challenged and changed by warming global temperatures is the insurance industry. Damaging extreme events such as wildfires, hurricanes, and floods are happening with greater frequency and intensity, which leaves insurance companies facing larger financial risks and paying out more in claims — and it also leaves policy holders paying higher prices to insure their homes and businesses.
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Coughing Up Billions of Dollars to Save Florida’s Insurance Market
In the three months since Hurricane Ian struck Florida, the state’s fragile property insurance market has been teetering on the brink of collapse. The historic storm caused over $50 billion in damage, and dealt a body blow to an industry that was already struggling to stay standing: Several insurance companies had already collapsed this year even before the hurricane, and major funders are now poised to abandon those that remain.
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Machine Learning Could Predict Rare Disastrous Events Like Earthquakes or Pandemics
Researchers suggest how scientists can circumvent the need for massive data sets to forecast extreme events with the combination of an advanced machine learning system and sequential sampling techniques.
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What's the Link Between Global Warming and Extreme Weather?
Heavy snowfall und subzero temperatures have wreaked havoc on the United States this holiday season. DW takes a closer look at how this and other types of extreme weather link back to climate change.
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NOAA to Advance Seasonal High Tide Flooding Predictions
The new model will aid flooding and restoration efforts, and help lessen possible impacts from climate change.
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Wildfires Threats Not Commonly Disclosed by U.S. Firms Despite Risk to Economy
Wildfires in the United States, especially in Western states, increasingly pose a significant risk to entire communities, often destroying homes, businesses and lives. Yet U.S. firms rarely report their wildfire risks in required federal filings and instead bury such risks in nonspecific risk disclosures.
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Addressing the Needs of Underprepared Communities
Many regions in the U.S. do not have regular earthquakes. Still, they have faults that can create large earthquakes, and communities in these regions are not prepared to experience a large quake with the capacity to cause significant damage. A new center will specifically address areas of low probability of occurrence but high impact earthquake risk and seek to meet the needs of all communities for natural hazard mitigation.
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2022’s U.S. Climate Disasters: A Tale of Too Much Rain – and Too Little
The year 2022 will be remembered across the U.S. for its devastating flooding and storms – and also for its extreme heat waves and droughts, including one so severe it briefly shut down traffic on the Mississippi River.
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Flash Droughts Becoming Big Concern for Farmers, Water Utilities
Many people are familiar with flash floods – torrents that develop quickly after heavy rainfall. But there’s also such a thing as a flash drought, and these sudden, extreme dry spells are becoming a big concern for farmers and water utilities.
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Drought Encouraged Attila’s Huns to Attack the Roman Empire, Tree Rings Suggest
Hunnic peoples migrated westward across Eurasia, switched between farming and herding, and became violent raiders in response to severe drought in the Danube frontier provinces of the Roman empire.
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Major Fires an Increasing Risk as the Air Gets Thirstier
Greater atmospheric demand for water means a dramatic increase in the risk of major fires in global forests unless we take urgent and effective climate action, new research finds.
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The World’s Insurance Bill from Natural Disasters This Year: $115 Billion
Extreme weather events have caused an estimated $115 billion in insured financial losses around the world this year according to Swiss Re, the Zurich-based reinsurance giant. That’s 42 percent higher than the 10-year average of $81 billion.
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Landslide Risk Remains Long After an Earthquake
Satellite observations have revealed that weak seismic ground shaking can trigger powerful landslide acceleration – even several years after a significant earthquake.
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Global Warming Doubled the Risk for Copenhagen’s historic 2011 Cloudburst
On 2 July 2011, the Danish capital Copenhagen suffered a cloudburst of historic proportions, causing damage and destruction costing billions of kroner. Researchers have used detailed weather models to clearly tie increased temperatures to that historic cloudburst.
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Gone with the Wind? Huskers Investigate Mystery of Last Standing Grain Bin
More than 750,000 steel silos and bins are estimated to pepper rural America, often standing empty before filling up on the annual harvest. Most cannot withstanding winds of 100-plus miles per hour – but some can.
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The long view
Strengthening School Violence Prevention
Violence by K-12 students is disturbingly common. Ensuring that schools have effective ways to identify and prevent such incidents is becoming increasingly important. Expanding intervention options and supporting K-12 school efforts in Behavioral Threat Assessment and Management (BTAM) would help.
Huge Areas May Face Possibly Fatal Heat Waves if Warming Continues
A new assessment warns that if Earth’s average temperature reaches 2 degrees C over the preindustrial average, widespread areas may become too hot during extreme heat events for many people to survive without artificial cooling.
Trump’s Cuts to Federal Wildfire Crews Could Have “Scary” Consequences
President Donald Trump’s moves to slash the federal workforce have gutted the ranks of wildland firefighters and support personnel, fire professionals warn, leaving communities to face deadly consequences when big blazes arrive this summer. States, tribes and fire chiefs are preparing for a fire season with minimal federal support.