• Will Climate Change Make Insurance Too Expensive?

    Extreme weather events influenced by climate change are causing ever greater destruction, forcing insurers to increase their premiums where they can. What does this mean for the future?

  • Beach Erosion Will Make Southern California Coastal Living Five Times More Expensive by 2050: Study

    The region’s sandy coastlines are vanishing at an alarming rate. It’s a warning sign for coastal communities worldwide, USC research suggests.

  • 'Hybrid’ Disaster Response Shows How Localization Saves Lives

    The earthquake that struck southwest Haiti in August 2021 killed thousands of people and left more than half a million seeking help. New research by a University of Notre Dame expert finds that the assessment of this disaster can serve as a model for evaluating future disasters and making life-saving improvements.

  • As Reservoirs Go Dry, Mexico City and Bogotá Are Staring Down ‘Day Zero’

    In Mexico City and Bogotá, reservoir levels are falling fast, and the city governments have implemented rotating water shutoffs as residents are watching their taps go dry for hours a day. Droughts in the region have grown more intense thanks to warmer winter temperatures and long-term aridification fueled by climate change. In South Africa in 2018, Cape Town beat a climate-driven water crisis, and the way it did it holds lessons for cities grappling with an El Niño-fueled drought.

  • Before “Superstorm” Sandy, Investors Underestimated Risk, Impact of Hurricanes

    Weather experts are warning that this year’s Atlantic hurricane season could be among the most active on record. Hurricanes and other extreme weather events cause millions of dollars in damage , but they also create spikes in uncertainty that can linger in financial markets for affected firms for months.

  • A Section of Critical Highway Collapsed in Wyoming. Could It Happen Anywhere?

    The partial collapse of a roadway in Wyoming as a result of a landslide that occurred over the weekend raises serious questions about the state of the nation’s infrastructure. “These failures don’t happen everywhere. The conditions have to be right,” says one expert.

  • Why This Summer Might Bring the Wildest Weather Yet

    Summers keep getting hotter, and the consequences are impossible to miss: In the summer of 2023, the Northern Hemisphere experienced its hottest season in 2,000 years. Forecasts suggest that this year’s upcoming “danger season” has its own catastrophes in store. El Niño has been rough, but its departure could be even rougher.

  • States Beg Insurers Not to Drop Climate-Threatened Homes

    In the coming years, climate change could force Americans from their homes, not just by raising sea levels, worsening wildfires and causing floods — but also by putting insurance coverage out of reach.

  • The Homeowner Mutiny Leaving Florida Cities Defenseless Against Hurricanes

    The only protection the town of Hendrickson, Florida, has from the Gulf of Mexico’s increasingly erratic storms is a pristine beach that draws millions of tourists every year — but that beach is disappearing fast. A series of storms have eroded most of the sand that protects Redington Shores and the towns around it, leaving residents just one big wave away from water overtaking their homes. The federal government is refusing to restore eroded beaches in Pinellas County unless homeowners agree to one condition: public access.

  • FloodAdapt Will Help Protect Flood-prone Communities

    The Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) has partnered with Deltares USA to conduct demonstrations, trainings, and performance testing for the new accessible compound flood and impact assessment tool, which will help at-risk communities better prepare for and respond to severe weather events.

  • Texas’ First-Ever Statewide Flood Plan Estimates 5 Million Live in Flood-Prone Areas

    The state’s flood plan shows which Texans are most at risk of flooding and suggests billions of dollars more are needed for flood mitigation projects. Texas plans to reduce the risk for those people by recommending solutions to harden Texas against floods and rising sea levels.

  • 2023 Was the Hottest Summer in Two Thousand Years

    Researchers have found that 2023 was the hottest summer in the Northern Hemisphere in the past two thousand years, almost four degrees warmer than the coldest summer during the same period. Even allowing for natural climate variations over hundreds of years, 2023 was still the hottest summer since the height of the Roman Empire, exceeding the extremes of natural climate variability by half a degree Celsius.

  • Peak Water: Do We Have Enough Groundwater to Meet Future Need?

    Though vast stores of groundwater persist below Earth’s surface, the climbing cost of accessing it is on track to significantly reshape the geography of trade and drive users toward alternative water sources.

  • The Government Wants to Buy Their Flood-Prone Homes. But These Texans Aren’t Moving.

    The recent floods in Harris County, Texas, show why home buyout programs can be important. These programs involve the government buying, and demolishing, houses in flood-prone zones, that is, areas which typically flood first and worse. The Harris County flood control district wants to buy properties along the San Jacinto River that have flooded repeatedly. Some residents aren’t leaving.

  • Researchers Predicting Well Above-Average 2024 Atlantic Hurricane Season

    Hurricane researchers are predicting an extremely active Atlantic hurricane season in their initial 2024 forecast. The researchers cite record warm tropical and eastern subtropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures as a primary factor for their prediction of 11 hurricanes this year.