flood – Desdemona Despair

Map showing notable economic loss events due to natural and climate disasters in 2023. Global economic losses in 2023 were higher than the 21st century average. Economic losses from global natural disasters in 2023 are estimated at $380 billion, above long-term and short-term averages, after adjusting historical losses to today’s values using the U.S. Consumer Price Index. All continents recorded remarkable natural disaster events in 2023 and multiple countries faced the most significant disasters in their modern histories. The global map shows event and peril patterns that contributed to the overall economic losses in 2023. The largest loss driver was earthquake, yet this was largely caused by a handful of events, notably the earthquake sequence in Turkey and Syria. Severe convective storms came second, with the largest individual losses concentrated in the United States and Europe. Graphic: Aon

February 19, 2024

Aon: Number of billion-dollar disasters in 2023 highest on record – Severe convective storms were the most damaging peril for insurers

LONDON, 23 January 2024 (Aon) – Aon plc, a leading global professional services firm, today published its 2024 Climate and Catastrophe Insight report, which identifies global natural disaster and climate trends to help make better decisions to manage volatility and enhance global resilience. The report reveals that the 398 global natural disaster events caused a $380 billion (2022: $355 billion) […]

Prentice Sinclair Smith a friend of home owner Dion Peronneau says she was awoken by the sound of cracking around 4 a.m. early morning Monday, as mudflow forced its way into her home in the Baldwin Hills area of Los Angeles, Tuesday, 6 February 2024. One of the wettest storms in Southern California history unleashed more than 300 mudslides in the Los Angeles area after dumping more than half of the city’s seasonal rainfall in just two days, and officials warned Tuesday that the threat hadn’t passed yet. Photo: Damian Dovarganes / AP Photo

February 8, 2024

Record rainfall, triple-digit winds, hundreds of mudslides. Here’s California’s storm by the numbers

LOS ANGELES, 6 February 2024 (AP) – The slow-moving atmospheric river still battering California on Tuesday unleashed record rainfall, triple-digit winds and hundreds of mudslides. Here is the historic storm by the numbers: Downtown Los Angeles In just three days, downtown Los Angeles got soaked by more than 8 inches (20.3 cm) of rain — more than half […]

Maps showing Central and South-East Africa cholera attack rate per 100,000 people (suspected and confirmed cases per month) between September and December 2023, as of 15 December 2023. Graphic: WHO

January 27, 2024

Cholera cases soar globally amid shortage of vaccines – “The unprecedented rate of cases and deaths is terrifying, and utterly overwhelming the health systems of these countries”

By Weronika Strzyżyńska 12 January 2024 (The Guardian) – Cholera cases soared last year, according to preliminary data from the World Health Organization, which recorded 4,000 cholera deaths and 667,000 cases globally. The numbers surpassed that of 2022, and the WHO has classified the global resurgence of cholera as a grade 3 emergency, its highest internal health […]

Map showing areas surrounding New Orleans underwater by 2050 if current trends in sea level rise continue. Graphic: Climate Central

January 1, 2024

Interactive map shows United States areas under the sea in 2050 due to climate change

By John O’sullivan 1 January 2024 (Irish Star) – Several parts of The United States could be underwater by the year 2050, according to a frightening map produced by Climate Central. The map shows what could happen if the sea levels, driven by climate change, continue to rise at rates of 2 mm and 4 mm […]

Aerial view of the Donnie Creek wildfire in northeastern British Columbia in May 2023. The massive blaze ripped across more than 1.44 million acres of land throughout the late spring and summer, making it the largest wildfire on record for the Canadian province. Photo: BC Wildfire Service

December 30, 2023

Ten “you must be kidding” weather and climate facts of 2023

By Bob Henson and Jeff Masters 26 December 2023 (Yale Climate Connections) – The drumbeat of record weather and climate phenomena — hottest, wettest, fieriest, fiercest, and so on — can sometimes fade into the background, like the repetitive backdrop to a mournful dirge. Then there are those sharp moments, like a cymbal crash, when […]

A map of the world plotted with some of the most significant climate events that occurred during November 2023. Graphic: NOAA/NCEI

December 29, 2023

NOAA reports 2023 hottest year on record, so far – “We will look back at 2023 and think of it as: remember that year that wasn’t so bad?”

By Lauren Sommer 28 December 2023 (NPR) – As 2023 draws to a close, it’s going out on top. “It’s looking virtually certain at this point that 2023 will be the hottest year on record,” says Zeke Hausfather, climate scientist at Berkeley Earth, a non-profit that analyzes climate trends. Though temperature records from December have […]

Screenshot of the Human Climate Horizons platform, showing projected sea level rise (cm) in the 2040-2059 time horizon under the intermediate carbon emissions scenario (SSP2-4.5). Australis, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, and and the Pacific islands of Oceania are shown. The global average sea level rise is projected to be more than 18 cm. Graphic: UNDP

December 25, 2023

Climate change’s impact on coastal flooding to increase by five times over this century – “The effects of rising sea levels will put at risk decades of human development progress in densely populated coastal zones which are home to one in seven people in the world”

28 November 2023 (UNDP) – According to new data on the Human Climate Horizons platform, a collaboration between the Climate Impact Lab and UNDP, increased coastal flooding this century will put over 70 million people in the path of expanding floodplains. Latin America and the Caribbean, East Asia and the Pacific, and Small Island Developing […]

A post-wildfire debris flow in the burn scar of the Walker Creek Fire caused significant damage in central Washington in the summer of 2022. Photo: Washington State Department of Natural Resources

December 3, 2023

When burn scars become roaring earthen rivers – “We’re screwed for mudslides”

By Kylie Mohr 1 November 2023 (High Country News) – Two Septembers ago, the residents of Grotto, Washington, woke to the Bolt Creek Fire ripping through the mountains above their homes. “This doesn’t happen here,” Patricia Vasquez remembers saying at the time, shocked. While areas east of the state’s Cascade mountains frequently burn in the […]

Churchgoers leave Sunday morning service in Kioa, Fiji. Photo: Andrew Quilty / The Guardian

December 3, 2023

Australia offers refuge to Tuvaluans as rising sea levels threaten Pacific archipelago – “We are sinking, but so is everyone else”

By Pauline Rouquette 11 November 2023 (France24) – Canberra announced on Friday that it is offering climate refuge to Tuvaluans, unveiling the terms of a pact that would enable citizens of the 26-square kilometre archipelago – the fourth smallest state in the world – to move to Australia to “live, study and work”. Located near […]

Dilshad Bano, 51, sits on the floor near her house which was damaged after a Glacial Lake Outburst Flooding (GLOF) incident, in Hassanabad village, Pakistan, 9 October 2023 Photo: Akhtar Soomro / REUTERS

December 2, 2023

Mountain villages fight for future as melting glaciers threaten floods – “Until 1978, this whole place was a glacier. The pool of water came later.”

By Charlotte Greenfield 22 November 2023 (Reuters) – On the steep slope of a glacier jutting through the Hunza valley in Pakistan’s mountainous far north, Tariq Jamil measures the ice’s movement and snaps photos. Later, he creates a report that includes data from sensors and another camera installed near the Shisper glacier to update his […]