Which climate hazard is expected to intensify the fastest in your area?
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In the past six months, Florida has faced record high temperatures, abnormally toxic algal blooms, and the house-flattening winds of Hurricane Michael. California suffered its worst-ever wildfires, preceded by drought and followed by mudslides. Scientists may study climate change impacts separately, but their potential to strike together is clear.
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Hurricanes hit the U.S. especially hard, leading 2018’s near-record list of 14 billion-dollar weather and climate disasters. Hurricanes Michael and Florence combined for at least $49 billion in damages — over half of the total from the year’s included events (cost estimates will be updated over time). In addition, the Western wildfire season was
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Floodwaters surged through Boston streets during a March Nor’easter. Nearly 19,000 structures were destroyed in the Camp Fire, which became California’s largest-ever wildfire just months after the previous record blaze. Hurricanes Florence and Michael flooded farms and flattened homes. It has been another year of devastating extreme weather events,
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In 2012, Hurricane Sandy slammed into New Jersey, producing a major storm surge and damaging or destroying many thousands of homes. Over the years that followed, builders put up new houses and reconstructed damaged ones, in many areas that will be vulnerable to more flooding in the future — even in the absence of a superstorm like Sandy. The post-
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“King Tides,” the highest astronomical tides of the year, are just around the corner — as the Earth, moon, and sun line up for peak gravitational pull on the oceans. Ocean currents and topography also play a role in when these peaks occur and how high they get. On the East and Gulf Coasts, they tend to come in October, while on the West Coast, they
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June 8 is World Oceans Day, a time to raise awareness about the importance of the oceans to our planet. Ocean currents and broader circulations move vast amounts of water around the world, redistributing heat and energy, and helping regulate the global climate. Wind-driven currents like the cold California Current and the warm Gulf Stream are
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Five years ago this month, Sandy made landfall in New Jersey as it transitioned to a non-tropical storm. The catastrophic flooding that followed resulted in an estimated $50+ billion in damage. On the storm’s fifth anniversary, we analyze the 50 largest U.S. populations at risk from coastal flooding from Atlantic basin storms.
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Harvey has now re-formed into a tropical depression off the northwest coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. This means the center of circulation has been located, which will improve forecasts. The official National Hurricane Center track and intensity forecast depicts Harvey tracking towards the Texas coast by Friday evening, and then stalling for
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Recent summers on the vast, white expanse of the Greenland Ice Sheet have featured some spectacular ice melt, including an alarming period in 2012 when nearly the whole surface showed signs of melt. But this summer has instead seen several bouts of snow, staving off a big summer melt. So what gives? While it may seem contradictory, those snows are
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October was the second hottest on record for the planet, NASA data released Tuesday shows. The month was the latest in a string of record- and near record-warm months that will see 2016 easily take the title of hottest year in the books. While an exceptionally strong El Niño helped to boost temperatures early in the year, most of the excess heat
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Sea level around the globe has risen about 8 inches since 1900, and three-quarters of that rise can be traced to human-caused warming. This rise has brought an increase in the frequency of coastal flooding to the U.S., especially in the last decade. Relatively smaller coastal floods that do not involve storms — often referred to as “nuisance“
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