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For 400 years, Indigenous Tribes Buffered Climate's Impact on Wildfires in the American Southwest
Devastating megafires are becoming more common, in part, because the planet is warming. But a new study suggests bringing “good fire” back to the U.S. and other wildfire fire-prone areas, as Native Americans once did, could potentially blunt the role of climate in triggering today’s wildfires.
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California Declares Storm State of Emergency
A huge storm has hit the West Coast of the US, prompting California’s governor to declare a state of emergency. Officials said it may be “one of the most challenging and impactful” storms to hit the state in five years.
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Towers in the Storm
The problem with the U.S. electrical grid is that many transmission towers have exceeded their design life by about 50 years, which means the aging grid today faces bigger chances of failure. One threat to the grid is from damaging winds of extreme storms such as hurricanes.
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Americans Are Flocking to Wildfire
People are trading hurricane zones for wildfire areas, says national study of migration, natural disasters, and climate change.
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Wildfires in Colorado Are Growing More Unpredictable. Officials Have Ignored the Warnings.
A year after the deadly Marshall Fire drove thousands of Coloradans from their homes, the state’s densest communities aren’t preparing for the next climate-driven wildfire.
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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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The long view
Trump Aims to Shut Down State Climate Policies
President Donald Trump has launched an all-out legal attack on states’ authority to set climate change policy. Climate-focused state leaders say his administration has no legal basis to unravel their efforts.