• 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.

  • Extreme Weather is Battering the World. What's the Cause?

    Floods and heatwaves across Africa, deluges in southern Brazil, drought in the Amazon, and extreme heat across Asia, including India: the news has been full of alarming weather disaster stories this year, and for good reason. Climate change is likely fueling a surge in extreme weather events across the planet. It could be a troubling sign of things to come.

  • Solar Geoengineering to Cool the Planet: Is It Worth the Risks?

    There is no international, national or state framework that currently governs geoengineering. As a result, one worrisome future scenario is that climate impacts in a particularly vulnerable country will be so severe that it resorts to deploying stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI, also called solar radiation management or SRM) on its own before the world is ready for it. This could cause political instability or provoke retribution from other countries that suffer its effects.

  • Texas Flooding Brings New Urgency to Houston Home Buyout Program

    The San Jacinto River is a national hotspot for ‘managed retreat,’ but recent floods show how far local officials still have to go.

  • Decayed Power Pole Sparked the Largest Wildfire in State History, Texas House Committee Confirms

    A decayed utility pole that broke, causing power wires to fall on dry grass in the Texas Panhandle, sparked the state’s largest wildfire in history. A lack of air support and ineffective coordination hurt efforts to contain this year’s Panhandle fires, the committee said.

  • Resilient Power Systems in the Context of Climate Change

    As extreme weather events increase in frequency and society’s dependence on electricity grows, scientists are focusing on issues at the nexus of water and energy, recognizing that water and energy systems are strongly coupled and already stressed.

  • Sinking Land Increases Risk for Thousands of Coastal Residents

    One in 50 people living in two dozen coastal cities in the United States could experience significant flooding by 2050, according to new research. The study projects that in the next three decades as many as 500,000 people could be affected as well as a potential 1 in 35 privately owned properties damaged by flooding.

  • From Florida Floods to Idaho Desert: Understanding Impacts of Flood Damage on Vehicle Batteries

    Electric vehicles offer some clear advantages over gasoline-power cars including zero emissions and lower operation and maintenance costs. But they also present some new challenges. Recent storms have revealed that seawater-flooded EVs can pose safety concerns for passengers, emergency responders and recovery personnel.

  • FEMA Is Making an Example of This Florida Boomtown. Locals call it “Revenge Politics.”

    When U.S. homeowners buy subsidized flood insurance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, they make a commitment to build back better after flood disasters, even if it costs them. The Biden administration is trying to punish Lee County for rebuilding flood-prone homes. The state’s Republican politicians are fighting back.