Florida – Page 3 – Desdemona Despair

Aerial view of apparent red tide and other phytoplankton species in the water near Naples and Sanibel, Florida on 13 November 2022. According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, beaches from Sarasota to Port Charlotte varied between low, medium, and high levels of red tide. Because Hurricane Ian brought so much rain to Florida in October, scientists on the coast closely monitored water quality to see if the storm had any impacts. Photo: Ralph Arwood / Calusa Waterkeeper

November 20, 2022

Photos show toxic algae blooms plaguing southwest Florida waters – Runoff from Hurricane Ian suspected

By Dylan Abad 14 November 2022 TAMPA, Florida (WFLA) – Aerial photos revealed massive plumes of red tide stretching along much of southwest Florida’s coast days after Tropical Storm Nicole passed over the state. Photos released by Calusa Waterkeeper showed a deep reddish-brown discoloration of the water near Naples and Sanibel due to the presence […]

Waves lap the eroded beach below the half-collapsed homes of Nina Lavigna, at left, and her neighbor, after Hurricane Nicole swept away sand from the beach and from under foundations, Saturday, 12 November 2022, in Wilbur-By-The-Sea, Fla. Photo: Rebecca Blackwell / AP Photo

November 14, 2022

Florida county puts damage from Hurricane Nicole at $481 million – “The structural damage along our coastline is unprecedented”

DAYTONA BEACH SHORES, Florida, 14 November 2022 (AP) – Damages are estimated at more than $481 million in a central Florida coastal county where homes collapsed into the Atlantic Ocean following Hurricane Nicole last week. The damages from the category 1 storm in Volusia County, home to Daytona Beach, exceeded those from the much stronger Hurricane Ian, […]

Excess U.S. death rates by county vaccination rate relative to 2019, before and after vaccine availability. The graph shows average excess death rates for Republicans and Democrats in each county for Covid Pre-Vaccine (April 2020 to March 2021) and Covid Post-Vaccine (April 2021-December 2021). The circles are each county, and diamonds are binned means for each party. The curves are quadratic fits using least squares. Graphic: Wallace, et al., 2022

October 9, 2022

Anti-vaccine rhetoric in U.S. caused elevated Republican mortality from COVID – “Overall, the excess death rate for Republicans was 76 percent higher than the excess death rate for Democrats”

By Donald Moynihan 7 October 2022 (Slate) – For at least a year now, there has been strong but largely circumstantial evidence that right-wing anti-vaccine rhetoric was having deadly consequences in the United States. Despite early wide-scale access to COVID-19 vaccines, the U.S. has outstripped its peer countries when it comes to the all-important measure of mortality known as “excess […]

Life expectancies across congressional districts in the United States, 2010-2015. Graphic: Takai, et al., 2022 / Social Science and Medicine

June 16, 2022

Graph of the Day: Life expectancy by U.S. congressional district, 2010–2015

25 March 2022 (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health) – Researchers at the Harvard Geographic Insights Lab have launched the first-ever dashboard that tracks life expectancy on the U.S. congressional district level. The dashboard was released in conjunction with a 12 March 2022 paper in the journal Social Science & Medicine. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health co-authors of […]

John Lawrence and Payton Campbell (unseen at rear) with their children Harlow and Aria inspect a flooded road near their home on 2 March 2022 in Dungay, Australia. Several northern New South Wales towns were forced to evacuate as Australia faced unprecedented storms and the worst flooding in a decade. Photo: Dan Peled / Getty Images

March 29, 2022

Coastal home buyers are ignoring rising flood risks, despite clear warnings and rising insurance premiums

By Risa Palm and Toby W. Bolsen 25 March 2022 (The Conversation) – Apollo Beach, Florida, is a maze of canals lined with hundreds of houses perched right near the water’s edge. The whole community, just south of Tampa, is only about 3 feet above sea level, meaning it’s at risk from storm surge as […]

Map showing the Spring First Leaf Index Anomaly in the United States in 2022. In parts of California and Arizona, this year's spring leaf out is the earliest in the 40-year record. Graphic: National Phenology Network

March 12, 2022

Spring 2022: In parts of California and Arizona, spring leaf out is earliest on record – In parts of Texas, spring bloom is latest on record

9 March 2022 (National Phenology Network) – Spring leaf out continues to progress across the country. Our spring leaf anomaly compares the arrival of spring leaf out this year to a long-term average of 1991-2020. After a slow start to spring across much of the Southeast, spring is progressing more rapidly, arriving a few days […]

(a) Total, (b) global, (c) linear, and (d) regional and local nonlinear sea-level rise (SLR) rates for three sites (New Jersey, Cheesequake; Florida, Nassau; Scotland, Kyle of Tongue) are shown with the time of emergence for each site. Model predictions are the mean with 1σ uncertainty. Note variable y-axes. Graphic: Walker, et al., 2022 / Nature Communications

February 21, 2022

Onset of modern sea level rise began in 1863, international study finds – “We can be virtually certain the global rate of sea-level rise from 1940 to 2000 was faster than all previous 60-year intervals over the last 2,000 years”

18 February 2022 (Rutgers University) – An international team of scientists including Rutgers researchers has found that modern rates of sea level rise began emerging in 1863 as the Industrial Age intensified, coinciding with evidence for early ocean warming and glacier melt. The study, which used a global database of sea-level records spanning the last […]

Maps showing regional sea level linear rates of rise (mm/year) from satellite altimetry over three different time periods: (a) 1993–2006, (b) 2007–2020, and (c) 1993–2020. Linear rates of change of relative sea level (ocean and land height changes) from tide gauges over the same time period are also shown (circles). Graphic: Sweet, et al., 2022 / NOAA

February 19, 2022

U.S. coastline to see up to a foot of sea level rise by 2050 – Report projects a century of sea level rise in 30 years – “These numbers mean a change from a single flooding event every 2-5 years to multiple events each year”

15 February 2022 (NOAA) – The United States is expected to experience as much sea level rise by the year 2050 as it witnessed in the previous hundred years. That’s according to a NOAA-led report updating sea level rise decision-support information for the U.S. released today in partnership with half a dozen other federal agencies. […]

Florida Department of Health in Orange County director Dr. Raul Pino speaks during the press conference that Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings help on 13 April 2020 to discuss COVID-19 and County updates. On 19 January 2022, the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis put Dr. Pino on leave and threatened criminal prosecution for encouraging his staff to get vaccinated. Photo: Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda / Orlando Sentinel

January 19, 2022

DeSantis administration puts Florida health director on leave for encouraging vaccinations for his staff – “I have a hard time understanding how we can be in public health and not practice it”

By Frank Gluck 19 January 2022 (Fort Myers News-Press) – Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration, already facing criticism for downplaying the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccinations, has put on leave Orange County Health Director Dr. Raul Pino for encouraging his staff to get vaccinated. Pino had written in a 4 January 2022 email to his staff: “I […]

Daily COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people in Miami-Dade County Florida, 31 December 2021. By the beginning of 2022, Covid-19 cases in Florida had risen by 948 percent in just two weeks, as the highly transmissible Omicron variant drove a huge wave of infections and hospitalizations across the U.S. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis blamed “hysteria” and the Federal government. Graphic: Covid Act Now

January 4, 2022

COVID-19 cases rise by 948 percent in Florida as Omicron drives huge wave across U.S. – “It’s every man/woman for themselves, because leadership is MIA” – Gov. DeSantis attacks scientists for “bad policy”

By Alexandra Villarreal 3 January 2022 (The Guardian) – Covid-19 cases in Florida have risen by 948% in just two weeks, as the highly transmissible Omicron variant drives a huge wave of infections and hospitalizations across the US. Even as Dr Anthony Fauci – Joe Biden’s top medical adviser – cautioned the public to look at hospitalizations and […]