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Using Drone Swarms to Fight Forest Fires
Forest fires are becoming increasingly catastrophic across the world, accelerated by climate change. Researchers are using multiple swarms of drones to tackle natural disasters like forest fires.
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How Climate Change Primed Texas to Burn
Over the past 10 days, five wildfires in the region have burned more than 1.2 million acres. The largest of them — dubbed the Smokehouse Creek Fire, for a creek near its origin — stretches across an area larger than Rhode Island. The state’s high plains get a month more fire weather now than they did in the 1970s.
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Texas Requires Utilities to Plan for Emergencies. That Didn’t Stop the Panhandle Fires.
Experts say utilities need to be ready for extreme weather, which could be a challenge in a state where discussing climate change is often taboo. A review of portions of the state’s electricity code shows utilities have to plan for maintaining their equipment and responding in emergencies, but how they do so is largely left to the companies.
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Climate Change Poses Serious National Security Threat
After years of debate, there is growing awareness within the Department of Defense and the U.S. government more broadly that climate change poses a serious national security threat. Some efforts to cope with this challenge are already underway.
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Hurricanes and Power Grids: Eliminating Large-Scale Outages with a New Approach
Large scale-power outages caused by tropical cyclones can be prevented almost entirely if a small but critical set of power lines is protected against storm damages.
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Israeli Tech to Help Modernize Pacific Northwest Power Grid
Exodigo gets federal funding to help Pacific Northwest National Laboratory transition to underground electric power lines.
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Disasters Expo USA: The Latest in Disaster Preparedness and Recovery
Disasters Expo USA will be held at the Miami Beach Convention Center on 6-7 March 2024. Leading disaster mitigation experts will share with the thousands of participants the latest information and insights on the most innovative, cost-effective, and efficient solutions which aim to help communities prepare for, cope with, and recover from destructive and costly disasters.
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How Sponge Cities Work?
With concrete and asphalt covering areas once given over to grass and soil, the water from heavy rains has nowhere to go. Too often, that results in flooding, and cities around the world are now exploring ways to reverse this kind of urban development. And they are doing it by turning themselves into urban “sponges.” In other words, they are creating spaces and infrastructure to absorb, hold and release water in a way that allows it to flow back into the water cycle.
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Air Pollution Hides Increases in Rainfall
For much of the last century, the drying effect of aerosols has masked increases in rainfall from greenhouse gases – but as aerosol emissions diminish, average and extreme rains may ramp up.
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Raging Texas Wildfires Force U.S. Main Nuclear Weapon Facility to Evacuate, Temporarily Shut Down
Raging wildfires in the Texas panhandle have forced the evacuation and temporary closure of the Pantex plant, the U.S. premier nuclear weapons assembly facility. The Pantex plant said that “All weapons and special materials are safe and unaffected.”
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Earthquake Fatality Measure Offers New Way to Estimate Impact on Countries
A new measure that compares earthquake-related fatalities to a country’s population size concludes that Ecuador, Lebanon, Haiti, Turkmenistan, Iran and Portugal have experienced the greatest impact from fatalities in the past five centuries.
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New Detection Method Aims to Warn of Landslide Tsunamis
Researchers have devised a way to remotely detect large landslides within minutes of occurrence and to quickly determine whether they are close to open water and present a tsunami hazard.
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Can Astronomers Use Radar to Spot a Cataclysmic Asteroid?
How can humans protect the Earth from devastating asteroid and comet impacts? According to the National Academies, ground based astronomical radar systems will have a “unique role” to play in planetary defense.
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Report Details 2023 State Policy Trends in Disaster Resilience
As the world continues to grapple with the growing impacts of climate change, we will need to take clear steps to reduce the consequences of ongoing and forecasted catastrophes. It is important to understand what is happening at the state level and how climate adaptation and disaster resilience priorities are appearing in state laws that govern our approaches and underwrite our resilience efforts.
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CyberShake Study Uses Summit Supercomputer to Investigate Earthquake Hazards
Researchers are unraveling the mysteries of earthquakes by using physics-based computational models running on high-performance computing systems. The team’s findings will provide a better understanding of seismic hazards in the Golden State.
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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.