• Bay Area Coastal Flooding Triggers Region-Wide Commute Disruptions

    Researchers have modeled how coastal flooding will impact commutes in the Bay Area over the next twenty years. Regions with sparse road networks will have some of the worst commute delays, regardless of their distances from the coast.

  • “Worst case” CO2 Emissions Scenario Best Match for Assessing Climate Risk: Report

    Four scenarios known as Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) were developed in 2005 to describe the potential scope and impact of global warming. The worst-case scenario was RCP 8.5, referring to the concentration of carbon that delivers global warming at an average of 8.5 watts per square meter across the planet (the best-case scenario was RCP 2.6). Scientists now argue that the RCP 8.5 CO2 emissions pathway — the worst-case scenario — is the most appropriate for conducting assessments of climate change impacts by 2050.

  • More Frequent Coastal Flooding Threatens 20 percent of global GDP

    Coastal flooding across the world is set to rise by around 50 percent due to climate change in the next 80 years, endangering millions more people and trillions of dollars more of coastal infrastructure. The land area exposed to an extreme flood event will increase by more than 250,000 square kilometers globally, an increase of 48 percent or over 800,000 square kilometers. This would mean about 77 million more people will be at risk of experiencing flooding, a rise of 52 percent to 225 million. The economic risk in terms of the infrastructure exposed will rise by up to $14.2 trillion, which represents 20 percent of global GDP.

  • Impact of Sea Level Rise on Property

    A new study reveals that urgent action is needed to protect billions of dollars in real estate investment across South Florida due to impacts of sea level rise over the next several decades. The aim of the report is to cast light on the issue and clarify the alternatives available to South Florida, which embraces the four counties of Monroe, Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach. These counties together generate more than $337 billion in personal income annually with a combined real property value assessed at more than $833 billion.

  • Seismic Background Noise Drastically Reduced Due to COVID-19 Lockdown Measures

    Global COVID-19 “lockdown” measures - the quarantines, physical isolation, travel restrictions and widespread closures of services and industry that countries around the world have implemented in 2020 - resulted in a months-long reduction in global seismic noise by up to 50 percent, representing the longest and most prominent global seismic noise reduction in recorded history.

  • Texas to Face Driest Conditions of Last 1,000 Years

    Texas’ future climate will have drier summers and decreasing water supplies for much of the remainder of the twenty-first century — likely resulting in the driest conditions in the last 1,000 years, according to research led by Texas A&M University scientists.

  • Coming Soon? A Brief Guide to Twenty-First-Century Megadisasters

    When it comes to calamities, Jeffrey Schlegelmilch thinks big. In his upcoming book, Rethinking Readiness: A Brief Guide to Twenty-First-Century Megadisasters, he explores menaces that potentially could change not just lives or communities, but entire societies. He groups these into five categories: climate change; cyber threats; nuclear war; failures of critical infrastructure such as electric grids; and biological perils including pandemics. Schlegelmilch answered questions about megadisasters in light of recent events.

  • Flood Bot: New Flood Warning Sensors

    Ellicott City, Maryland, suffered devastating floods in 2016 and 2018. The disasters left residents and officials wondering how technology could help predict future severe weather, and save lives and property. Scientists offer an answer: The Flood Bot network.

  • Venice Ambitious Anti-Flood System Passes First Trial

    Venice On Friday conducted the first test of a controversial dam system made up of 78 inflatable barriers, aiming to protect the city from severe flooding. The ambitious and costly dam system, launched in 2003, has been plagued by corruption and is nearly a decade behind schedule. It will becoe fully operational by the end of 20201, and it is designed to hold water surges as high as 10 feet.

  • Roadmap for Studying Link between Climate and Armed Conflict

    Climate change—from rising temperatures and more severe heavy rain, to drought—is increasing risks for economies, human security, and conflict globally. Scientists are offering ways better to assess the climate-conflict link to help societies manage the complex risks of increased violence from a changing climate.

  • Future Texas Hurricanes: Fast Like Ike or Slow Like Harvey?

    Climate change will intensify winds that steer hurricanes north over Texas, increasing the odds for fast-moving storms like 2008’s Ike compared with slow-movers like 2017’s Harvey, according to new research.

  • Increases in Greenhouse Gas, Particulate Pollution Emissions Drive Drying around the Globe

    Researchers have identified two signatures or “fingerprints” that explain why arid conditions are spreading worldwide, and why the Western United States has tended toward drought conditions since the 1980s while the African Sahel has recovered from its prolonged drought.

  • Heatwave Trends Accelerate Worldwide

    The first comprehensive worldwide assessment of heatwaves down to regional levels has revealed that in nearly every part of the world heatwaves have been increasing in frequency and duration since the 1950s. New research has also produced a new metric, cumulative heat, which reveals exactly how much heat is packed into individual heatwaves and heatwave seasons. As expected, that number is also on the rise.

  • Why Japanese Businesses Are So Good at Surviving Crises

    On 11 March 2011, a 9.1-magnitude earthquake triggered a powerful tsunami, launching 125-feet high waves at the coast of the Tohoku region of Honshu, the largest and most populous island in Japan. nearly 16,000 people were killed, hundreds of thousands displaced, and millions left without electricity and water. Railways and roads were destroyed, and 383,000 buildings damaged, including a nuclear power plant at Fukushima. “In lessons for today’s businesses deeply hit by pandemic and seismic culture shifts, it’s important to recognize that many of the Japanese companies in the Tohoku region continue to operate today, despite facing serious financial setbacks from the disaster,” she writes. “How did these businesses manage not only to survive, but thrive?”

  • Crisis Response When the Status Quo Is a Crisis

    As the world experiences a global pandemic in the form of the novel coronavirus, the focus of most governments has understandably been on the health implications of this virus, and on the economic fallout of the lockdowns and other mitigation measures taken to stop its spread. Tellis Bethel and Ian Ralby write that there are two major issues whose careful consideration becomes more necessary by the day: security matters and natural disasters. “If the status quo is a pervasive disaster, how can we cope with incidental or episodic emergencies? Few states, if any, are ready for the challenge,” they write.