The following article by Chris Mooney was posted on the Washington Post website June 13, 2018:
Credit: ThermService via MorgueFile.com
Antarctica’s ice sheet is melting at a rapidly increasing rate, now pouring more than 200 billion tons of ice into the ocean annually and raising sea levels a half-millimeter every year, a team of 80 scientists reported Wednesday.
The melt rate has tripled in the past decade, the study concluded. If the acceleration continues, some of scientists’ worst fears about rising oceans could be realized, leaving low-lying cities and communities with less time to prepare than they had hoped.
The following article by Morgan Currie, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Digital Civil Society Lab, Stanford University, and Britt S. Paris, Ph.D. Student in Information Studies, University of California/Los Angeles was posted on the Conversation website March 21, 2018:
After Donald Trump won the presidential election, hundreds of volunteers around the U.S. came together to “rescue” federal data on climate change, thought to be at risk under the new administration. “Guerilla archivists,” including ourselves, gathered to archive federal websites and preserve scientific data.
The following article by Sammy Roth was posted on the USA Today website January 31, 2018:
A military Humvee maneuvers through flooded streets in downtown Annapolis, Md., on Oct. 30, 2012, in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Annapolis is home to the U.S. Naval Academy, which was one of the first military installations to be analyzed for climate risks. Credit:: Blake Sell/AP
Military leaders are sounding another alarm about the dangers of climate change, saying in a new report that half of U.S. military sites have already been affected by floods, wildfires, droughts and other weather extremes that are exacerbated by rising global temperatures.
Following a request from Congress, the Defense Department studied climate risks to all 3,500 U.S. military sites around the world. It found nearly 800 had been affected by droughts, 350 by extreme temperatures, 225 by storm surge-related flooding and more than 200 by wildfires, among other weather events.
Climate scientists say those types of extreme weather events have already become more common as global temperatures increase. Sea levels are rising, storms are getting more intense, dry regions are getting drier and fire seasons are getting longer, research shows.
The following article by Chris Mooney and Brady Dennis was posted on the Washington Post website January 8, 2018:
Fires in California and hurricanes in Texas and Puerto Rico caused massive damage in 2017. This is what it looked like from the air. (Patrick Martin/The Washington Post)
This story has been updated.
Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria combined with devastating Western wildfires and other natural catastrophes to make 2017 the most expensive year on record for disasters in the United States, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported Monday.
The following article by Hiroko Tabuchi was posted on the New York Times website January 4, 2018:
Roberto Figueroa Caballero’s home in San Juan, P.R., was destroyed by Hurricane Maria last year. Credit Ramon Espinosa/Associated Press
Insurers are set to pay out a record $135 billion to cover losses from natural disasters in 2017, the world’s largest reinsurer said Thursday, driven by the costliest hurricane season ever in the United States and widespread flooding in South Asia.
Overall losses, including uninsured damage, came to $330 billion, according to the reinsurer, Munich Re of Germany. That tally was second only to 2011, when an earthquake and tsunami in Japan contributed to losses of $354 billion at today’s dollars.
Insured losses from weather-related disasters were at a high, making up most of the $135 billion. Munich Re executives warned that losses would continue to escalate.
“Some of the catastrophic events, such as the series of three extremely damaging hurricanes, or the very severe flooding in South Asia after extraordinarily heavy monsoon rains, are giving us a foretaste of what is to come,” Torsten Jeworrek, a Munich Re board member, said in a statement. Continue reading “2017 Set a Record for Losses From Natural Disasters. It Could Get Worse.”
The following article by Nick Visser was posted on the Huffington Post website December 28, 2017:
The president re-upped a favored talking point of climate change deniers.
Credit: Sarah Wasko / Media Matters
President Donald Trump used forecasts for what could be record-breaking cold weather over New Year’s Eve to push a widely disproven talking point denying climate change.
The following article by Joanna Purpich was posted on the Daily Beast website December 18, 2017:
Donald Trump can deny global warming all he wants, but the price can’t be ignored after 2017’s supercharged hurricanes and wildfires wreaked havoc from coast to coast.
Photo Ilustration by Lyne Lucien/The Daily Beast
After a year of unprecedented fires and floods, natural disasters exacerbated by climate change will cost the United States more than $200 billion.
Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria were among the most expensive hurricanes in U.S. history, according to the disaster tracking group Enki Holdings. Combined with a severe and unusually long wildfire season, the government will need to pay at least $216 billion in disaster relief, more than the annual gross domestic product of Portugal.
The disaster relief bill passed by Congress this fall only provides $36.5 billion to be split between both flood damage and wildfire fighting.
The vast majority of costs from natural disasters came from this year’s hurricane season, which caused an estimated $206.6 billion in damage, the most expensive season on record according to a report released by Enki that used a computer simulator along with economic and infrastructure data to estimate the costs of every hurricane since 1871.
While 2005’s Hurricane Katrina still ranks as the costliest hurricane to hit the U.S. at $118 billion, Harvey which brought 50 inches of rainfall to the Gulf Coast caused $92 billion in damage, while Irma and Maria cost $59 billion and $42 billion, according to the study.
Enki Director Chuck Watson said that the study’s estimates only take into account direct damage from the storms, whereas numbers from other sources might include the costs of things like subway fortification in the case of Sandy and other preventative measures built into the price of recovery. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott put the costs of Harvey between $150 billion and $180 billion during an interview with Fox News, while Puerto Rico’s Gov. Ricardo Rosello asked Congress for $94 billion in November.
Wildfires that burned through parts of California, Oregon, and Montana also contributed to the vast price of natural disasters. More than $10 billion went toward costs related to wildfires in those three states alone.
“The government will need to pay at least $216 billion in disaster relief, more than the annual gross domestic product of Portugal.”
