• Weather

NOAA Announces Big Upgrades to Its Global Weather Forecast System

• damages
• forecasts
• Hurricanes
• National Weather Service
• severe storms

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has made a major upgrade to its Global Forecast System (GFS) that experts hope will equip the agency and weather services around the world to adapt to the challenges of climate change. The upgrade will greatly improve the forecasting of extreme weather events including hurricanes and high-altitude weather systems.

Why This Matters: Hurricanes are becoming more frequent and more intense each year. But NOAA’s GFS hasn’t managed to keep up.

• Water

Flood Costs Rising

• climate change
• damage
• Flooding
• natural disasters
• severe storms

The costs of inaction on climate change keep rising  — an additional $2.5 billion a year in just U.S. flood damage. A study published this week found that from 1988-2017, increased rainfall led to a total of $75 billion in damage. 

Why this Matters: Flooding is one of the most common and expensive natural disasters and will only go up in the years ahead.

• Weather

Top Ten Stories of 2020: A Record-Setting Hurricane Season

• climate refugee
• hurricane
• ocean
• rapid intesification
• severe storms
• warming

This year we shattered the record for the number of named storms over the course of the six months of hurricane season with 30 — we exceeded the previous record by four.   There were so many storms that we ran out of names and went deep into the Greek alphabet, which is what happens when we use up all the typical ones.

• Ocean

Biden-Harris Will Deliver a Powerful Blue Economy

• Blue Economy
• climate change
• ocean
• sea level rise
• severe storms
• sustainable

By David Helvarg & Jason Scorse Like millions of Americans, Delaware’s Vice President Joe Biden and his family love the coast. They spend their summers visiting their family beach house in a typical Delaware shore town with a boardwalk, small shops, bars, and restaurants. Its expansive beaches attract countless families, the adjacent state park is […]

• Weather

More Extreme Weather Makes Life Harder for Millions of Americans This Week

• climate change
• derecho
• FEMA
• heat
• high heat
• hurricane
• severe storms
• severe weather

The extreme weather events this summer keep piling up. Phoenix set a record for the most number of days over 110 degrees in a year with 35 — so far as of yesterday.  Plus a derecho, which is akin to an inland hurricane, swept 700 miles across the midwest Monday.

Why This Matters:  President Trump is trying to remove $50 billion from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to pay for needed unemployment benefits he unilaterally ordered.  Given the increased number of hurricanes predicted (a new storm is forming in the Atlantic), it seems like a particularly bad time to raid FEMA’s emergency funds.

• Ocean

Sea Walls Are No Match For Severe Storms Made Worse By Climate Change

• #HurricaneIsaias
• climate change
• jettie
• mangroves
• natural defenses
• salt marshes
• sea level rise
• sea wall
• severe storms

Hurricane Isaias, while only a category 1 (low strength) storm, caused great damage along the coast of the Carolinas and inland up the I-95 corridor, with several people killed, leaving nearly 3 million people without power, and causing widespread flooding necessitating water rescues up the Eastern seaboard all the way from Myrtle Beach, SC to Philadelphia, CNN reported last night. 

Why This Matters:  Sea level rise and coastal flooding are some of today’s toughest climate challenges.  While the gut instinct may be to “build that wall,” in the case of the ocean, walls and other “hardened” structures only make matters worse.