Map showing global climate risk as an Aggregated Damage Ratio, projected to the year 2050. Graphic: XDI

Florida’s projected sea level rise by 2100 is bad news for sunshine state – Outside of China, Florida is the most at-risk state/province in the world for economic damage caused by climate change

By Pandora Dewan 24 February 2023 (Newsweek) – By 2100, Florida could see sea levels rise by up to 6 feet, with over 900,000 properties at risk of being underwater. “By 2050, Florida sea levels, like much of the US, are headed for a 1-foot rise on average (above 2020 levels),” William Sweet, an Oceanographer for the […]

Aerial view of cars immersed in floodwaters on 11 January 2023 in Planada, California. The Central Valley town of Planada was devastated by widespread flooding after a severe atmospheric river event moved through the area earlier in the week. The San Francisco Bay Area and much of California continued to be drenched by powerful atmospheric river events that brought high winds and flooding rains. The storms toppled trees, flooded roads, and cut power to tens of thousands. Storms lined up over the Pacific Ocean and brought more rain and wind through the end of the week. Photo: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

“A town of Hispanics left in the dark”: Rural California town of Planada flooded, now forgotten – “We are traumatized and scared. What is the county going to do to take care of its rural communities?”

By Jessica Garrison 14 February 2023 PLANADA, California (Los Angeles Times) – Once the levee broke, the water rose so quickly that in the few minutes it took Erica Lopez Bedolla to decide to evacuate and gather her children and a few necessities, it had surged from her ankles to her knees. What followed that […]

(a) Annual snow-zone fire detections subset by snow seasonality in California, 2001–2021. (b) Snow seasonality classifications for California. (c) All fire detections (2001–2021), colored by snow seasonality classification: blue (seasonal), red (ephemeral), and gray (non-snow zone). Fire detections in seasonal (blue) and ephemeral (red) snow zones during (d) 2001–2019 and (e) 2020–2021, noting fires named in the text. Graphic: Hatchett, et al., 2023 / Geophysical Research Letters

California’s snowpack is melting faster than ever before, leaving less available water – “The threats to the state’s water supply are imminent”

By Hayley Smith 14 February 2023 (Los Angeles Times) – For decades, Californians have depended on the reliable appearance of spring and summer snowmelt to provide nearly a third of the state’s supply of water. But as the state gets drier, and as wildfires climb to ever-higher elevations, that precious snow is melting faster and […]

Map showing 28-day COVID-19 cases in U.S. counties on 26 January 2023. Graphic: Johns Hopkins University

Greg Olear: The Plague turns three – More than a million Americans are dead of COVID-19. Where is the outrage? “U.S. performance at the level of South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, or Japan in containing the pandemic would have saved over 300,000 American lives in 2020 alone”

By Greg Olear 24 January 2023 (Substack) – Three years ago today, the Centers for Disease Control confirmed a second travel-related infection of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the United States, this time in Illinois. The Illinois case was the epidemiological equivalent of the second airplane hitting the World Trade Center. It meant that the first U.S. […]

Aerial view of a flooded home that is partially underwater in Gilroy, California, on 9 January 2023. Photo: Josh Edelson / AFP / Getty Images

California storms leave billions of dollars in damage to businesses, homes, and infrastructure – Few homeowners have flood insurance – Total costs associated with storms estimated at $31 billion to $34 billion

By Jim Carlton 21 January 2023 ANTIOCH, California (The Wall Street Journal) – Paradise Skate Roller Rink was preparing to host a New Year’s Eve bash when floodwaters poured in from a nearby creek, destroying the wooden floor and leaving the decades-old business in this San Francisco Bay Area suburb out of commission for months. […]

Cognitive differences between groups of people who were directly exposed to the Camp Fire in 2018, people who were indirectly exposed (who witnessed the fire but were not directly impacted), and age- and gender-matched non-exposed controls. Event-related potential responses (ERPs) elicited on the interference processing task and their relationship to behavior. (A) Group averaged ERPs ± standard error are shown at frontal (F3, F4) and parietal (P3, P4) channels corresponding to the directly exposed (red), indirectly exposed (blue) and unexposed control (green) groups. Red and orange bars depict significant peak amplitude differences between the directly exposed vs. control group, and the directly exposed vs. indirectly exposed group (p

Climate trauma: people exposed to the deadly Camp Fire in 2018 displayed altered cognitive function months later

By Scott LaFee 18 January 2023 (UC San Diego Today) – In November 2018, the Camp Fire burned a total of 239 square miles, destroyed 18,804 structures and killed 85 people, making it the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history.  Three years later, researchers at University of California San Diego, published a novel study that […]

The atmospheric river hitting California on 9 January 2023 simulated by the high-resolution HRRR weather model. Graphic: WeatherBell

California’s deadly floods won’t break the megadrought – “We are in the middle of a flood emergency and also in the middle of a drought emergency”

By Neel Dhanesha 6 January 2023 (Vox) – A “river” more than 100 miles wide is gushing through the air high above California, bringing with it heavy rain, winds, and snow. It’s the third in a series of weather systems known as atmospheric rivers — long, heavy columns of water vapor in the sky — to hit the state in the […]

Regional glacier mass change and contributions to sea level rise from 2015 to 2100. Discs show global and regional projections of glacier mass remaining by 2100 relative to 2015 for global mean temperature change scenarios. Discs are scaled based on each region’s contribution to global mean sea level rise from 2015 to 2100 for the +2°C scenario by 2100 relative to preindustrial levels, and nested rings are colored by temperature change scenarios showing normalized mass remaining in 2100. Regional sea level rise contributions >1 mm SLE for the +2°C scenario are printed in the center of each disc. The horizontal bars below each disc show time series of area-averaged annual mass balance from 2015 to 2100 for +1.5°C (top bar) and +3°C (bottom bar) scenarios. The colorbar is saturated at −2.5 m w.e., but minimum annual values reach −4.2 m w.e. in Scandinavia. Graphic: Rounce, et al., 2022 / Science

Half of glaciers will be gone by 2100 even under Paris 1.5C accord, study finds

By Phoebe Weston 5 January 2023 (The Guardian) – Half the planet’s glaciers will have melted by 2100 even if humanity sticks to goals set out in the Paris climate agreement, according to research that finds the scale and impacts of glacial loss are greater than previously thought. At least half of that loss will happen […]

The carcass of an elephant that died during the drought is seen in the Shaba National Reserve, Isiolo county, Kenya, 22 September 2022. Photo: Baz Ratner / REUTERS

Reuters pictures of the year: Extreme weather in 2022

30 December 2022 (Reuters) – From historic droughts to floods, climate change worsened weather extremes in 2022. See more 2022 extreme weather and environment photos from Reuters here and here. Pictures of the year: Extreme weather in 2022

Maasai children stand beside a zebra that local residents say died due to drought, as they graze their cattle at Ilangeruani village, near Lake Magadi, in Kenya, on 9 November 2022. Photo: Brian Inganga / AP Photo

In 2022, AP photographers captured pain of a changing planet

By Peter Prengaman 16 December 2022 (AP) – In 2022, Associated Press photographers captured signs of a planet in distress as climate change reshaped many lives. That distress was seen in the scarred landscapes in places where the rains failed to come. It was felt in walloping storms, land-engulfing floods, suffocating heat and wildfires no […]

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