• Wildfires to get more common, harder to control

    Wildfires are getting worse, as evidenced by the devastation caused in Australia in 2009 and again last year, in Russia in 2010, in Canada’s Slave Lake and Colorado Springs in 2011, and in Arizona earlier this year. The world’s wildfires annually burn between 350 million and 600 million hectares of forest, an area equivalent to the size of India. Researchers predict that global warming will increase severity of wildfires threefold by end of century.

  • Predicting what could happen if Hurricane hits

    A Sandia National Laboratories team is gearing up for hurricane season, readying analyses to help people in the eye of a storm. The team has two jobs: conducting annual “hurricane swath” analyses of probable impacts on the Gulf Coast and East Coast, and providing quick analyses of crisis response in the face of an imminent hurricane threat to the United States. A swath analysis looks at how a hurricane might interrupt critical services and at impacts to infrastructure specific to an area, such as petroleum and petrochemical industries in Houston or financial services in New York City. It also looks at such things as the economic impact of the storm or how it could upset food deliveries.

  • 130-year old seawall protected New Jersey town from Sandy's storm surges

    Bay Head and Mantoloking sit side-by-side in Ocean County, facing the ocean. In Bay Head, Sandy flooded 88 percent of the oceanfront homes, with just one oceanfront home destroyed. In Mantoloking, more than half of the oceanfront homes were damaged or destroyed. The reason for the difference between minor structural impacts and widespread destruction: a relatively small coastal obstacle — a forgotten, 1,260-meter seawall, built in 1882 and buried beneath the beach – which reduced potential wave loads by a factor of two.

  • Dealing with man-made earthquakes

    Between 1967 and 2000, central and eastern United States experienced on average 20 earthquakes above a magnitude 3.0 a year. Between 2010 and 2012, the number of earthquakes above a magnitude 3.0 in these regions has dramatically increased to an average of 100 a year. This increase in earthquakes prompts two important questions: Are they natural, or man-made? And what should be done in the future as we address the causes and consequences of these events to reduce associated risks?

  • Mother Nature offers best protection for coastal communities’ infrastructure

    Extreme weather, sea-level rise, and degraded coastal ecosystems are placing people and property at greater risk of damage from coastal hazards. The likelihood and magnitude of losses can be reduced by intact ecosystems near vulnerable coastal communities. Scientists say that natural habitats such as dunes and reefs are critical to protecting millions of U.S. residents and billions of dollars in property from coastal storms.

  • Training volcano scientists saves lives

    Scientists and technicians who work at volcano observatories in nine countries are visiting Mount St. Helens and the U.S. Geological Survey Volcano Science Center’s Cascades Volcano Observatory this week to learn techniques for monitoring active volcanoes. The International Training Program in Volcano Hazards Monitoring is designed to assist other nations in attaining self-sufficiency in monitoring volcanoes and reducing the risks from eruptions.

  • Houston, Texas boasts world’s best lightning detection system

    With thousands of strikes each year, Houston is the lightning center of Texas and one of the world’s most lightning-prone areas. Studies show about 1,800 thunderstorms pound the Earth at any given moment, resulting in about fifty lightning strikes every second. The country’s best system to detect lightning strikes — located in and around the Houston area — just got better, thanks to a complete overhaul and new software.

  • Climate change, severe weather threaten U.S. energy sector: Dept. of Energy

    The U.S. entire energy system is vulnerable to increasingly severe and costly weather events driven by climate change, according to a U.S. Department of Energy report published last week. These climate and weather trends — increasing temperatures, decreasing water availability, more intense storm events, and sea level rise — each independently, and in some cases in combination, could restrict the supply of secure, sustainable, and affordable energy critical to U.S. economic growth.

  • U.S. Emergency Alerting System (EAS) vulnerable to hacking

    The U.S. Emergency Alerting System (EAS) is designed to allow for quick alerts during an emergency. Researchers uncovered vulnerabilities in the digital alerting systems, vulnerabilities which allow an attacker remotely to log in over the Internet and manipulate any system function. The attacker could disrupt a TV or radio station’s ability to transmit and could disseminate false emergency information.

  • Using crowdsourcing for earthquake monitoring

    The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and other scientific institutions are using social media and crowdsourcing to learn more about earthquakes, according to a new report. These techniques provide inexpensive and rapid data to augment and extend the capabilities provided by traditional monitoring techniques.

  • Assessing the social, economic effects of Deepwater Horizon spill

    Numerous studies are under way to determine the impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on the Gulf of Mexico, but the extent and severity of these impacts and the value of the resulting losses cannot fully be measured without considering the goods and services provided by the Gulf, says a new report from the National Research Council (NRC). The report offers an approach that could establish a more comprehensive understanding of the impacts and help inform options for restoration activities.

  • Advancements in technology making it easier to fight wildfires

    Following the Arizona wildfire disaster, many have been suggesting that new regulations are needed to control the spread of wildfires. Experts say that advancements in technology may well offer a more effective approach to saving lives and making it easier for firefighters to control wild blazes.

  • Wildfires contribute more to global warming than previously thought

    Wildfires produce a witch’s brew of carbon-containing particles. A range of fine carbonaceous particles rising high into the air significantly degrade air quality, damaging human and wildlife health, and interacting with sunlight to affect climate.

  • Firefighting experts calling for easing environmental restrictions on prescribed burns

    In the aftermath of the Arizona wildfire which killed nineteen firefighters in Yarnell, Arizona, there are growing calls for easing environmental restrictions which currently limit brush clearing and prescribed burns. It typically costs $5 per acre to conduct a prescribed burn in the wilderness, and about $50 per acre near residential areas. Thinning an area with chain saws and other equipment can cost around $500 per acre. These figures are small when compared to the $1,200 per acre cost of fighting the wildfire in Arizona.

  • Improving the reliability, resiliency of post-Sandy N.J. electric grid

    According to NOAA, prolonged electrical outages, largely because of storms, have been steadily increasing in frequency since 1995. Sandia Lab will help East Coast communities devastated by Hurricane Sandy boost the resiliency of their electric grids, so they can be better prepared to deal with natural disasters in the future.