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Extreme weather disasters are often one of the most visible ways the climate ciris impacts our lives. While the academic and scientific world has been warning about the links between climate change and extreme weather, the general public is only just beginning to understand why disasters such as flooding, wildfires, drought, and tropical storms are becoming more severe. This page contains helpful links to sources that explain the science and the costs of climate change’s impact on extreme weather.
Extreme Rainfall And Flooding
Extreme Rainfall And Flooding
Big Picture
Big Picture
The National Climate Assessment report in 2014 made it clear that heavy downpours are increasing nationally. These are driven by warmer air holding more water vapor in the atmosphere. As warming temperatures have intensified rainfall over the last 30 years, flood costs have risen by $2.5 billion that can be directly linked to climate change. In 2019, climate change played a role in spring flooding in the midwest that caused $11 billion in damages and left more than 19 million acres of crop land unplanted.
Again, investments in transitioning to clean energy and reducing global warming emissions can help slow the warming of our atmosphere, which will limit the amount of moisture that can fall in a given area at once, but further investments will be needed to protect against the flooding that is already happening. Flooding threatens critical infrastructure such as drinking water facilities, bridges, dams, and as many as 551 toxic chemical sites. Funding to replace, reinforce, and upgrade our aging stormwater infrastructure can go a long way towards protecting our homes and businesses.
Link To Climate Change
Link To Climate Change
A study published in the journal Nature found that climate change is expected to cause a 26.4% increase in US flood damage risk by 2050.
According to the IPCC 2022 report, coastal, riverine, and urban flooding affecting communities and ecosystems will become a dominant risk to urban centers.
The flooding will displace people, compromise economic activity, disrupt transportation and trade infrastructure.
Between 2010 and 2020, droughts, floods and storms killed 15 times as many people in highly vulnerable countries, particularly in Africa — which is responsible for less than 3% of global emissions — than in the wealthiest countries.
Globally, more than one billion people in low-lying settlements face hazards such as sea-level rise, subsiding coasts, or flooding at high tides, while 350 million urban residents live with the threat of water scarcity.
In 2014, the National Climate Assessment concluded that “heavy downpours are increasing nationally…the mechanism driving these changes is well understood.”
The National Climate Assessment report in 2014 made it clear that heavy downpours are increasing nationally and are driven by warmer air holding more water vapor in the atmosphere
A 2021 report from the UN’s IPCC panel warned that heavy downpours that used to occur once every 10 years now occur 30% more frequently because of climate change.
A study published in June 2020 confirmed that climate change is driving more frequent extreme rainfall events in North America.
The rising costs of flood damage in the U.S. have been directly linked to climate change.
As warming temperatures have intensified rainfall over the last 30 years, flood costs have risen by $2.5 billion.
According to an Environmental Working Group 2022 report, insurance payments to U.S. farmers for crops lost to droughts and flooding have risen more than threefold over the past 25 year.
This is part of the reason why a place like Ellicott City, MD experienced what scientists called a once-in-a-thousand-year flood in 2016, only to see it happen again only two years later.
Deaths And Damages
Deaths And Damages
Flooding is the most common and costly natural disaster in the U.S., significantly affecting homes, businesses, infrastructure, and the environment.
A recent NOAA analysis of major disasters since 1980 found that inland flooding accounted for $150 billion in damage during major disasters, which are those that cause at least $1 billion in damage.
From 2011-2021, flooding has led to the displacement of 523,282 people in the U.S.
Since 2000, flood-related disasters in the U.S. accounted for more than $850 billion in damage and losses.
From 2009 to 2019, flooding prompted 73% of all presidential disaster declarations.
In 2019 alone, flooding killed at least 92 people and caused over $20 billion in damages:
Floods and flash floods in 2019 caused 92 deaths in the U.S.
Flooding on the Mississippi River, Midwest, and Southern states from March through July killed four people and caused $6.3 billion in damages.
Flooding on the Arkansas River from May through June killed five people and caused $3.1 billion in damages.
Flooding on the Missouri River and Great Plains states in March killed three people and caused $10.9 billion in damages.
In 2020, flooding caused at least 59 deaths and an unknown amount of damages:
In November 2020, at least 11 people were killed during flash floods in North Carolina.
In 2021, flooding has caused at least 146 deaths and an unknown amount of damages:
So far in 2022, flooding has caused at least 19 deaths and an unknown amount of damages:
In March 20222, 3 bodies were found in a submerged vehicle after a powerful storm dumped record amounts of rain in Alabama.
Agriculture Impact
Agriculture Impact
Flooding Has Yielded Grave Consequences For The Nation’s Agriculture Industry Over The Last Few Years:
19.4 million acres of farmland went unplanted in 2019 because of heavy rainfall and flooding. The combination of Trump’s trade war and extreme weather meant that farm bankruptcies surged up 24% in 2019.
State Specific Impacts:
State Specific Impacts:
Michigan:
In September 2021, farmers in Michigan were faced with planting or harvesting delays from storms.
Pepper, cabbage and pumpkin harvesting were expected to be delayed by at least 3 to 4 days with those crops still in the fields.
Wheat planting was expected to be delayed at least 8 to 10 days.
Corn harvests were expected to be delayed by week to 10 days, with worries about tar spot possibly damaging the crops.
In 2019, heavy rain delayed the harvest of crops in Michigan including corn, soybeans and wheat. 2019 was the third straight wet spring that threw corn and soybean farming into chaos, with planting of these crops falling historically late and threatening yields for the Fall.
As spring rains become heavier and storm violence increases, there will be an increase in nutrient runoff from farm fields in Michigan, a key driver of algae blooms in places like western Lake Erie.
North Carolina:
In 2020, flooding of the Cape Fear River in North Carolina’s Duplin Country destroyed a field of soybeans.
Flooding from Tropical Storm Zeta impacted crop fields and delayed harvests in North Carolina.
Georgia:
In Georgia, vidalia onion growers saw crop losses due to wet winter conditions in 2020. Harvest for one Georgia onion grower was expected to be around 40% less than 2019.
Wet and cold Spring weather delayed the harvest of peanut crops in Georgia.
By the end of April, vegetable growers in Georgia continued to battle disease problems brought on by wet Spring conditions.
March flooding in the middle of the state caused farmers to push back planting on crops including watermelon.
Texas:
In June 2021, farmers in Texas faced problems, including rotting seeds, poor development and denitrification, with cotton, corn, sunflower and wheat crops thanks to heavy rainfall.
Climate Change Is Already Changing Crop Planting And Growing Seasons:
Optimal planting zones for different species of plants are already shifting north and will continue to shift further away in the coming decades.
Our warming climate can even lead to unexpected cold snaps by disrupting the polar vortex.
This can be devastating to certain crops like Michigan tart cherries after erratic spring weather prompts trees to bloom earlier before getting hit with a surprise late frost.
Changing precipitation patterns due to climate change may result in excess water and flooding during off seasons and planting seasons, but limited water during critical crop growth periods.
Changes to growing seasons in some areas will also mean insects spawning multiple generations per season and producing more generations per year. In addition to adding more insects to the environment, this can lead to pests developing greater resistance to insecticides.
Changing winter temperature and humidity will require adapting grain storage.
Threats To Critical Infrastructure
Threats To Critical Infrastructure
A report by Climate Central found that between 2000 and 2021, about 83% of reported major outages in the U.S. were attributed to weather-related events.
58% of weather-related power outages were caused by severe weather such as high winds, rain and thunderstorms.
Flooding threatens critical infrastructure such as drinking water facilities, bridges, dams, and as many as 551 toxic chemical sites.
Flooding from extreme rainfall in 2019 took six drinking water treatment plants offline and overwhelmed wastewater facilities.
A report from the Government Accountability Office found 551 superfund sites that are vulnerable to flooding driven by climate change.
Around 60% of all non federal Superfund sites are located in areas that may be impacted by climate change fuelled flooding, storm surge, wildfires, or sea level rise.
Cities with aging water infrastructure are vulnerable to flooding caused by heavy downpours accelerated by climate change.
A 2019 Colorado State University study found that climate change accelerates deterioration of aging bridge infrastructure.
The closure of roads, bridges, tunnels, ports, and other assets, which is common during and after extreme rainfall, can delay the production and distribution of goods and services businesses need to operate during disasters and to return to normal afterwards.
Nearly 600,000 miles of rivers and streams and more than 13 million acres of lakes, reservoirs, and ponds across the U.S. are considered impaired.
From 2010 to 2018, the length of impaired rivers and streams increased from about 424,000 miles to more than 588,000 miles.
There is currently a water-related infrastructure investment gap of $434 billion over 10 years for drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater combined.
According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, “given the recent increase in rainfall trends and urbanization, the actual capacity of a stormwater system is often less than the design standard.”
From 2004 to 2014, urban flooding alone cost communities an average of $9 billion annually in direct damages, in addition to 71 deaths.
The trajectory of urban flooding impacts will likely exacerbate existing funding gaps as older stormwater assets cannot accommodate the changing rainfall patterns and intensity.
With an average lifespan of between 20 to 30 years, storage and treatment systems constructed in the 1970s or before have exceeded or are nearing the end of their lives. These systems are also likely too small to deal with current stormwater management practices and climate change impacts.
As climate change intensifies, septic failures are emerging as an issue for local governments.
About 20% of U.S. households rely on septic. Many systems are clustered in coastal areas that are experiencing relative sea-level rise.
Of the 120,000 septic systems in Miami-Dade County, more than half of them fail to work properly at some point during the year, helping to fuel deadly algae blooms in Biscayne Bay.
Sea level rise, changing water tables, precipitation changes and increased temperature can cause systems to fail.
When there are septic failures, bacteria and parasites from human waste flow into drinking water supplies or recreational waters, creating a public health problem.
The growing severity and frequency of flooding is pushing more sediment into the navigation channels, requiring more frequent dredging to keep the Mississippi River and its tributaries navigable.
10,000 residents were evacuated from Midland County, MI when two dams were breached in May 2020 following several inches of rain falling over the area in a short period of time.
A nearby Dow Chemicals plant was threatened by floodwaters entering containment ponds, though officials say no chemicals were released in this incident.
In Michigan alone, 20 toxic sites are at risk of spilling contaminants due to climate-induced flooding.
Over 80 levee systems within the U.S. Army Corps. of Engineers’ (USACE) portfolio were overtopped and breached, some multiple times. In total, 700 miles of levees were damaged.
Estimates indicate that levee repairs from these floods alone could reach $1 billion.
Aging levee infrastructure that currently protects millions of Americans is in dire need of repair.
Communities in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Guam depend on levees to mitigate flood risk.
17 million people across the U.S. live or work behind a levee.
Levees protect $2.3 trillion of property, 4,500 schools, and a range of industries.
Around 45% of the U.S. population live or work behind a high or very high risk levee.
80% of high or very high risk levees were found to have one or more levee performance concerns that would likely result in a breach prior to overtopping.
Approximately 30% of FEMA accredited levees within the USACE’s portfolio are considered to be moderate, high, or very high risk.
These levee systems have about 3.6 million people living or working behind them and protect $400 billion worth of property.
13% of assessed levee systems in the USACE’s portfolio have either no flood warning plan or their plan is out of date, which impacts more than 600,000 people living and working behind these levees.
An estimated $21 billion is needed to improve and maintain the moderate, high, and very high risk levees in the USACE’s levee portfolio.
Outdated precipitation estimates are hampering design and construction standards for roads, storm-water systems, dams and construction regulations. Without adequate data, the infrastructure relied upon by communities across the U.S. will continue to be woefully underprepared to manage extreme rainfall events.
Standards used in many states no longer accurately portray the risk to infrastructure intended to last 50 years or longer. Most of the country’s infrastructure assets were designed and constructed to serve fewer people under less volatile weather conditions than exist today.
Many states rely on rainfall estimates, known as Atlas 14, that are produced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Data for 12 states (DE, IN, KY, MD, NJ, NC, OH, PA, SC, TN, VA, WA) have not been updated since 2006, while Oregon and Washington, having never sought an Atlas 14 estimate, are using data from 1961.
A 2015 analysis by the U.S. Department of Energy estimated that sea level rise is likely to cause storm-surge exposure increases of 12% to 40% for power plant assets and 18% to 44% for substations.
How Infrastructure Investments Can Help
How Infrastructure Investments Can Help
Gray Infrastructure Upgrades:
Updating the nation’s roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, and other critical infrastructure to better withstand future flood events will help improve community resilience and reduce taxpayer losses.
Adapting existing buildings to be “flood ready” may include elevating the bottom floor of the building, elevating utilities, changing the basement into an above-grade level crawl space, and providing vents for flood water to enter and leave the crawl space.
In Kuala Lumpur, traffic tunnels are designed to be able to transition to stormwater management during intense rainfall events, an example of multifunctional infrastructure.
Traditional ‘gray’ infrastructure, including flood control dams and reservoirs, channel modifications, floodwalls, and levees, are the most common flood mitigation tools.
Installing new pumping capacity and raising roads to protect at-risk properties are techniques employed by U.S. cities such as Miami to mitigate flood damage.
A 2014 University of Colorado Denver study found that severe flooding witnessed by the state in 2013 might have been less destructive if bridges, roads and other infrastructure had been upgraded or modernized.
U.S. Army Corps. of Engineers (USACE) levee and shore protection projects protected almost $350 billion in flood damages from October 2018 to September 2019 alone.
In 2011, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration invested $1.3 million in the city of Huntingburg, Indiana for flood protection from wastewater. The investment was accompanied by nearly $500,000 from the state and $909,000 from the city, which allowed for the construction of an earthen berm and other items to protect the city’s wastewater treatment plant from heavy rains and flooding.
Green Infrastructure:
Reducing the volume of stormwater runoff via green infrastructure techniques is a cost-effective way to manage the frequency and severity of localized urban flooding.
By reducing stormwater runoff and protecting floodplains, green infrastructure can help manage both localized and riverine floods.
Green infrastructure practices that enhance infiltration include rain gardens, bioswales, and permeable pavements.
The Capitol Region Watershed District in Ramsey County, Minnesota successfully implemented a series of green infrastructure practices to reduce localized flooding:
Selected practices included rain gardens, underground infiltration trenches, an underground storage and infiltration system, and a regional stormwater pond.
All of the practices, except the stormwater pond, which was not completed at the time, reduced runoff volumes by 99 - 100%.
Installing the green infrastructure, at an estimated cost of $2 million, was more cost-effective than installing an all-gray infrastructure alternative - at an estimated cost $2.5 million for a new 60-inch diameter storm sewer pipe.
To combat riverine flooding, the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD) partnered with The Conservation Fund to protect land with water-absorbing soil in regions experiencing high growth.
As of 2013, the program had protected over 2,700 acres of land capable of storing an estimated 1.3 billion gallons of water. Protecting this land reduced future flows and contaminants into receiving rivers, thus mitigating future flooding.
Restoring and protecting flood plains will limit the effects, and the subsequent cost, of floods.
Floodplains act as the first defense against flood damage by holding water when a river’s banks are breached and by slowing down the rise and flow of water.
Natural infrastructure provides an estimated $23.2 billion in storm protection services annually.
Natural infrastructure solutions could help avert more than 45% of the climate risk in the Gulf of Mexico over a 20-year period, saving the region over $50 billion in flood damages.
In cities with combined sewer systems, green infrastructure controls can cost less than conventional controls and green-gray approaches can reduce public expenditures on stormwater infrastructure.
Integrating green infrastructure into the site design can result in net cost savings by decreasing the amount of required below-ground drainage infrastructure and other stormwater management related facilities.
Hurricanes And Tropical Storms
Hurricanes And Tropical Storms
Big Picture
Big Picture
Scientists have found time after time that human-caused climate change is making hurricanes and tropical storms stronger with higher water surface temperatures that provide fuel for more intense hurricanes. 2021’s Atlantic hurricane season saw 21 named storms, including a record 7 hurricanes making landfall in the United States.
Investments in transitioning to clean energy and reducing global warming emissions can help slow the warming of our atmosphere and oceans, which will help slow down the intensity of future hurricanes, but further investments will be needed to protect our electrical grid and drinking water infrastructure. Additional investments in natural stormwater infrastructure such as protecting wetlands could save the Gulf of Mexico region over $50 billion in flood damages.
Link To Climate Change
Link To Climate Change
Scientists have found time after time that human-caused climate change is making hurricanes more frequent and more intense.
Hurricane intensification rate has significantly increased near the US Atlantic coast over the last 40 years.
An analysis of 2019’s Tropical Storm Imelda found that precipitation was 9%-17% more intense because of climate change.
A study from Stony Brook University found that 2018’s Hurricane Florence was about 9km larger in diameter due to climate change.
Scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research said that 2017’s Hurricane Irma was made much stronger because of climate change
A paper published by the American Geophysical Union found that 2017’s Hurricane Maria dropped more rain on Puerto Rico than any storm to hit the island since 1956, a feat due largely to climate change.
A scientist at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research found human-caused climate change contributed up to 30% of the rainfall from Hurricane Harvey.
According to the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research, human activities may have already caused changes to Atlantic hurricanes.
Anthropogenic warming is likely to increase the intensity of hurricanes by as much as 11%, and warming water temperatures will provide fuel for more intense hurricanes.
Increased hurricane activity has been linked to higher surface temperatures caused by man made carbon emissions.
2020’s Atlantic hurricane season smashed forecasts and went on to become the busiest hurricane season on record with 30 named storms, including a record 12 hurricanes making landfall in the United States.
An April 2022 study found that climate change contributed significantly to the severity of the ferocious 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, increasing both rainfall rates and rainfall totals.
On October 20th, Hurricane Epsilon became the earliest 26th named storm on record, beating out the previous record of November 22, 2005, by over a month.
For the first time since 1971, five named storms churned in the Atlantic Basin at one time. Paulette, Rene, Sally, Teddy and Vicky were each visible in the Atlantic Ocean on September 14, 2020.
In October 2020, the chance that any given storm in the Atlantic Ocean would reach major hurricane intensity (Category 3, 4 or 5) was twice as likely than it was in the 1980s, showing just how influential warmer ocean waters can be.
Deaths And Damages
Deaths And Damages
From 2011-2021, storms have led to the displacement of 5.1 million people in the U.S.
A recent study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that hurricanes and tropical cyclones were linked to a 33% higher death rate from related illnesses in the months following the storms.
Injury-related deaths spiked 33.4% within the same month of a hurricane hitting.
Deaths from infectious and parasitic disease increased 11.4% two months after hurricanes hit.
Increases in respiratory disease deaths peaked one month after hurricanes, while surges in cardiovascular disease death rates peaked during the month that the hurricane occured.
Neuropsychiatric death rates also peaked within the month of the hurricane by 9.9%.
In 2021 Alone, Hurricanes And Tropical Storms Caused At Least $78.5 Billion In Damages And 104 U.S. Deaths:
Hurricane Nicholas in September 2021 caused $1.1 billion in damages.
Hurricane Ida in August 2021 caused $76.5 billion in damages and 96 deaths.
Tropical Storm Fred in August 2021 caused $1.3 billion in damages and 7 deaths.
Tropical Storm Elsa in July 2021 caused $1.3 billion in damages and 1 death.
In 2020 Alone, Hurricanes And Tropical Storms Caused At Least $51 Billion In Damages And 91 U.S. Deaths:
Tropical Storm Eta in November 2020 caused $1.6 billion in damages and 12 deaths.
Hurricane Zeta in October 2020 caused $4.7 billion in damages and 6 deaths.
Hurricane Delta in October 2020 caused $3.1 billion in damages and 5 deaths.
Hurricane Sally in September 2020 caused $7.9 billion in damages and 5 deaths.
Hurricane Laura in August 2020 caused $25.3 billion in damages and 42 deaths.
Hurricane Isaias in August 2020 caused $5.2 billion in damages and 16 deaths.
Hurricane Hanna in July 2020 caused $1.2 billion in damages.
Tropical Storm Fay in July 2020 caused an estimated $220 million in damages and 6 deaths.
Hurricane Paulette in September 2020 caused 1 death
Tropical Storm Beta in September 2020 caused 1 death.
Impact On Agriculture
Impact On Agriculture
Louisiana:
Hurricane Ida in 2021 caused an estimated $584 million in damage to Louisiana’s agriculture industry.
The timber industry saw 168,000 acres of trees affected — worth an estimated $300 million. Most fallen timber isn't salvageable, less than 2% of timber that fell during the state's 2020 hurricanes could be sold.
Sugarcane saw an estimated $35.4 million hit, representing 7% of the industry's annual value.
In Louisiana, crops such as sugar cane, soybeans, citrus and vegetables were destroyed by the storm, and thousands of cattle were displaced due to damaged fences and flooding.
Strong winds reaching 150 mph toppled pine trees and hardwood ready for harvest and blew sugarcane flat, affecting about 25% of the crop in Louisiana.
Ida forced the closure of the Port of New Orleans, the Port of Baton Rouge and the Port of South Louisiana, all of which are essential to soy and grain transportation.
61% of U.S. soybean exports and 58% of corn exports depart from facilities along the lower Mississippi River in the New Orleans area.
More than 95% of U.S. grain exports travel by barge down the Mississippi River to the U.S. Gulf Coast. About 60% of U.S. grain and soybean exports move through 10 export grain elevators in Louisiana before being shipped around the globe.
Impacts from Hurricane Ida devastated Louisiana’s fishing industry, which is the most productive fishery in the continental U.S. valued at $2.5 billion:
Ida hurt some parts of the industry even worse than Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which cost seafood businesses more than $1 billion.
Ida hit Louisiana’s shrimp towns at the start of shrimp season, destroying homes, sinking boats and threatening the livelihoods of local shrimpers.
As of September 2021, about 2 million acres of fish have been killed in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, which is expected to affect recreational and commercial fishing for the immediate future in Louisiana.
Ida has decimated the fishing industry in places like Chauvin, Louisiana, where about half of the community of 2,8000 people rely on the fishing industry to make a living.
The state’s seafood industry was already suffering major losses as demand dropped due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
20%-30% of the fleet of shrimp boats in the Golden Meadow region of Lafourche parish was wiped out by Ida’s powerful winds.
Dozens of shrimp boats were sunk or damaged at a commercial marina off Bay Lanaux.
Ida forced oyster beds all along the Gulf Coast to shut down. Oyster production facilities were also impacted, with one plant in Houma having its roof ripped off by Ida only to be hit by Hurricane Nicholas two weeks later.
Even shrimp boats that weren’t damaged couldn’t fish for days after Ida due to a lack of power and clean water needed to make ice, which is vital to storing the catch.
Docks throughout St. Bernard Parish were without power and ice houses were damaged, hampering shrimpers in the weeks following Ida.
Most commercial fishing vessels in Louisiana are not insured, further complicating the industry’s recovery from the storm.
North Carolina:
In North Carolina, strong winds from Hurricane Isaias in 2020 flattened crops including tobacco, cotton and corn, making it difficult for farmers to harvest.
Rainfall events following Isaias caused crop lodging and increased instances of disease.
Initial estimates from the Farm Service Agency pegged the total crop losses in Craven County at approximately $5.6 million. Tobacco suffered an estimated $3.4 million in damages, and corn crops suffered at least $1 million in losses.
In Jones County, corn crops suffered a 25% loss and 20% of peanut crops were damaged.
Georgia:
Hurricane Sally in 2020 hammered peanut fields in western Georgia with between 5 to 12 inches of rain, while the Southeast corner of the state saw an average of 5 to 7.5 inches.
Florida:
According to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Hurricane Ian caused as much as $1.8 billion in damages to Florida agriculture.
Crops in Escambia County sustained heavy damage from wind and flooding from Hurricane Sally. Crops impacted included corn, cotton, and peanuts.
Hurricane Sally hit the state just as farmers in the Florida Panhandle were wrapping corn harvest, beginning peanut harvest, and a few weeks away from cotton harvest.
Crop damages for the region after Sally were a minimum value of $27 million.
Sally impacted 100,000 acres of peanuts, 100,000 acres of cotton and 100,000 acres of hay across Florida.
About 10,000 acres of corn and 4,000 acres encompassing horse farms, seafood, aquaculture, pecans, walnuts and timber were also hit hard by the storm.
Economists at the University of Florida predicted the combined losses of crops, livestock and aquaculture across from Sally to cost between $55 million and $100 million.
Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried said most farms in the area would see “almost 100% losses” on their crops following Sally.
Six days after the storm hit, soil in the Panhandle and Big Bend had not dried. Cotton farmers were estimated to see 100% losses and peanut farmers were bracing for their machines to not be able to harvest most of their crop,
Escambia County farmers expected to lose about half of their 2020 harvest due to the storm, and at least 40 local farmers saw damages from Sally that state officials estimated reached into the millions.
The Florida Farm Bureau forecasted cotton crop damages of between $300 and $700 per acre for the more than 50,000 acres owned and maintained by those 40 Escambia County farmers.
Flooding from Tropical Storm Eta in 2020 hammered South Florida’s vegetable farmers in the middle of harvesting season just weeks before Thanksgiving.
The storm hit as farms were harvesting vegetable crops including sweet corn, green beans, lettuce, cabbage, radishes.
Eta caused an estimated $85 to $320 million in damage to Florida’s crops.
In the Everglades Agricultural Area of the state, farmers said vegetable harvests suffered, or never happened in the first place due to a wet October followed by Tropical Storm Eta.
Wet conditions after weeks of rain led farmers delaying planting and harvesting, with some nearly a month behind where they normally would be.
Sugar mills in Clewiston, Florida had to briefly shut down due to the weather.
Farmers in western Palm Beach County delayed planting of vegetable crops, included cabbages, and halted sugar cane harvesting due to wet conditions.
In December, vegetable farmers in the southern part of the state were replanting crops lost to flooding during hurricane season.
Threats To Critical Infrastructure
Threats To Critical Infrastructure
Hurricanes And Tropical Storms Threaten Critical Infrastructure, Putting Communities At Risk Of Toxic Spills:
Around 60% of all non federal Superfund sites are located in areas that may be impacted by climate change fuelled flooding, storm surge, wildfires, or sea level rise.
By 2029, chronic service disruptions could cost water-reliant businesses $111 billion and American households a cumulative $378 million in healthcare costs.
Threats To The Electrical Grid:
A report by Climate Central found that between 2000 and 2021, about 83% of reported major outages in the U.S. were attributed to weather-related events.
15% were caused by tropical storms and hurricanes.
Electrical power distribution systems are extremely vulnerable to severe weather and climate events such as hurricanes and tropical storms.
Transmission lines are designed within limits of how much power they can move while maintaining safe operating conditions relative to air temperatures.
Hurricanes are the leading cause of electricity outages, causing nine in ten major outages across the U.S. The nation's grid is not prepared to handle such disasters, which will likely worsen as the climate changes.
In 2012, Hurricane Sandy left over 8.5 million customers in the U.S. without power and caused over $7 billion in economic loss and 225 fatalities.
Sandy was one of the most devastating storms to impact Connecticut’s overhead electric distribution network, resulting in over 15,000 outage locations that affected more than 500,000 customers.
The damage caused to energy infrastructure was so significant that even months after the storm, power was yet to be restored to all areas of New York and New Jersey.
The majority of the nation’s energy grid is aging. Some components are over a century old and others, including 70% of transportation and distribution lines, are well into the second half of their lifespans.
The distribution system accounts for 92% of all electric service interruptions, a result of aging infrastructure, severe weather events, and vandalism.
Transmission and distribution problems, such as those caused by extreme weather, result in power outages at an estimated annual cost of between $28 to $169 to U.S. households.
The cost of outages grew from $505,000 in 2010 to $740,000 in 2016, which equals $8,851 per minute that the electricity grid is malfunctioning.
How Infrastructure Investments Can Help
How Infrastructure Investments Can Help
Electrical Grid Infrastructure:
Implementing storm hardening measures enables the electric grid to better withstand the effects of hurricanes. Examples of such measures include elevating facilities to protect from flooding and constructing flood walls to protect against storm surges.
Case Study - New York: After Hurricane Sandy, New York-based utility Con Edison Inc. invested $1 billion in hardening measures including raising critical equipment, burying overhead lines and installing flood barriers and submersible equipment.
Case Study - Florida: Intense hurricane seasons in 2004 and 2005 prompted Florida Power & Light to install smart meters and other grid modernization technology, underground vulnerable power lines and replace some wooden utility poles with more-durable concrete poles. Florida’s Public Service Commissions reviewed the utilities' response and recovery to the four hurricanes that affected Florida during 2016-2017 and found that ‘the length of outages was reduced markedly from the 2004-2005 storm season.’ It determined that the state’s aggressive storm hardening programs are working.
Electrical power distribution systems are extremely vulnerable to severe weather and climate events such as hurricanes and tropical storms.
High winds during storms and hurricanes can lead to faults and damage to overhead transmission and distribution lines, either by debris being blown against the lines or a tower collapse in extremely high winds.
Lightning strikes on or near overhead conductors can cause short-circuit faults, which trigger the electrical protection and the disconnection of the lines. The voltage surge caused by the strike may be transferred along the line and cause damage to equipment, such as transformer wings.
Hurricanes are the leading cause of electricity outages, causing nine in ten major outages across the U.S. The nation's grid is not prepared to handle such disasters, which will likely worsen as the climate changes.
In August 2020, Hurricane Isasias caused power outages for more than 2 million customers across the Northeast. The same month, Hurricane Laura left 400,000 customers without power and 7 people died from carbon monoxide inhaled from improper usage of generators.
Rain and floods pose a danger to substation equipment, such as switchgear and control cubicles.
70% of substations in the Southern U.S. are vulnerable to flooding and their equipment is rapidly aging.
Green Infrastructure:
Reducing the volume of stormwater runoff via green infrastructure techniques is a cost-effective way to manage the frequency and severity of localized urban flooding.
Natural infrastructure provides an estimated $23.2 billion in storm protection services annually.
Natural infrastructure solutions could help avert more than 45% of the climate risk in the Gulf of Mexico over a 20-year period, saving the region over $50 billion in flood damages.
In cities with combined sewer systems, green infrastructure controls can cost less than conventional controls and green-gray approaches can reduce public expenditures on stormwater infrastructure.
Integrating green infrastructure into the site design can result in net cost savings by decreasing the amount of required below-ground drainage infrastructure and other stormwater management related facilities.
Drought & Extreme Heat
Drought & Extreme Heat
Big Picture
Big Picture
NASA, the Department of Defense, and 97% of scientists agree that human-caused emissions are warming the planet. Those effects can already be seen directly through extreme heat and drought affecting parts of the United States. Hotter, drier summers can have many disastrous consequences for our economy, including agricultural losses, loss of income for outdoor workers, and increased energy costs.
Transitioning to clean energy and improving energy efficiency is critical to lowering the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for driving up temperatures. At the same time, smart infrastructure and building practices can help us better manage water resources and help people stay cool during hot summer months while using less energy.
2022 Season
2022 Season
The megadrought that has gripped the southwestern United States for the past 22 years is the worst in at least 1,200 years. Human-caused climate change as a major reason for the current drought's severity.
Colorado River Water Conservation District General Manager Andy Mueller warned Colorado River Basin states that the system’s federal reservoirs could effectively empty in the next three to four years barring aggressive reductions to water demands.
Although Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton instructed those seven states (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona, California, and Nevada) to find up to 4 million acre-feet in reductions, no agreements had been reached as of a mid-August deadline.
Overall, drought continues across nearly 90% of the West and much of the Plains. Great Plains could see its most significant drought in a decade.
The historical drought of the Colorado River Basin has led the Bureau of Reclamation to declare the first ever water shortage and reduce water allocations by 18% in Arizona and 7% in Nevada for 2022.
The water reduction will put local communities at risk, and threaten National Critical Functions including electricity distribution, producing and providing agricultural products and services, and vessel transport of cargo and passengers.
With severe drought conditions across most of the Western states, weather service and agriculture officials have warned of possible water use cutbacks in California and the Southwest, as well as increased wildfires, damage to wheat crops, and low levels in key reservoirs such as Lake Mead and Lake Powell.
In October 2022, the Department of the Interior announced that it would look into changing the rules for how it operates Lake Powell and Lake Mead after the seven basin states, California, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, Nevada, and Arizona failed to reduce their water use between 2 and 4 million acre-feet.
Lake Powell and Lake Mead now sit three-quarters empty, and the most recent federal projections show that they could each decline below a critical threshold in the next two years.
The government’s review won’t conclude until next summer, but new rules could take effect immediately, which means painful new cuts may arrive in the Southwest as the region’s farmers are preparing for peak growing season.
More than 80% of the continental U.S. is experiencing unusually dry conditions or full-on drought, which is the largest proportion since the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration began tracking 20 years ago.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecasters are predicting a mild and dry winter for the southern tier of the U.S., including already drought-stricken areas in the lower Mississippi River Valley and the Southwest.
The forecast means no slowing in the momentum of a megadrought in California and the West, with no relief for the parched Colorado River basin and dangerously depleted Southwest reservoirs like Lake Mead and Lake Powell.
Below-normal precipitation could also continue to be a problem for the Mississippi River, as low water levels have slowed barge traffic and threatened municipal water supplies.
Maricopa County, Arizona is continuing a 7-year streak of breaking records for deaths from extreme heat. This summer was the deadliest on record with 359 heat-associated fatalities in Maricopa County, Arizona, amid a growing wave of homelessness.
Link To Climate Change
Link To Climate Change
The UN Weather Report found that Earth’s warming weather and rising seas are getting worse and doing so faster than before.
Since the decade began, sea levels are rising 5 millimeters a year which is double what it was in the 1990s.
The last eight years have been the warmest on record.
A Dartmouth College study found that extreme heat likely cost the world around $16 trillion between 1992 and 2013.
A 2022 Citi and Gallup analysis found that people who experienced extreme heat days also reported a decrease in their sense of well-being around the same time.
The global population experienced three times as many extreme heat days in 2020 than in 2008, and well-being decreased globally by 6.5% in that time as well.
Researchers also found that because the climate crisis is pushing temperatures even hotter, global well-being could decrease by another 17% by the end of this decade.
Researchers found that the impact on well-being is more significant among older generations than young, and among those living in countries with developing economies – where people are less equipped to handle the economic toll of the climate crisis.
The report also noted people living in the southernmost regions of many nations are at increasing risk of sweltering temperatures and its associated decline in well-being, including residents along the US Gulf Coast.
Researchers also linked warming temperatures and related disasters like drought to major conflicts and food insecurity – both of which can propel people from poorer and hotter countries to migrate to wealthier nations in cooler climates.
A 2022 analysis by the First Street Foundation found that an “extreme heat belt” will emerge in large parts of the country by 2053.
Researchers found the local hottest seven days of any particular area are expected to become the hottest 18 days over the next 30 years.
Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, and Florida are expected to see the largest increase in dangerous temperatures.
By 2053, 1,023 counties could experience heat index temperatures above 125 degrees, an area home to more than 107 million that covers a quarter of U.S. land area.
A 2022 analysis by E&E News found that extreme heat will communities where a majority of the residents are a racial or ethnic minority the hardest across the continental United States.
ZIP codes where a majority of the residents are a racial or ethnic minority will experience an average of 27.5 days in 2023 when the heat index exceeds 100 degrees Fahrenheit, while the average ZIP code will only experience 17 days.
ZIP codes where more than 90% of the residents are white will experience an average of 10.5 extreme-heat days.
In 2053, minority-majority ZIP codes will experience an average of 43 days of extreme heat.
ZIP codes that are more than 90% white will experience 19.5 days of extreme heat.
A 2022 report from the UN’s IPCC panel found between 2010 and 2020, droughts, floods and storms killed 15 times as many people in highly vulnerable countries, particularly in Africa — which is responsible for less than 3% of global emissions — than in the wealthiest countries.
If we reach 2 degrees Celsius of warming, between 800 million and 3 billion people globally could face chronic water scarcity because of drought, including more than one-third of the population in southern Europe.
Crop yields and fish harvests in many places could start declining.
A 2021 report from the UN’s IPCC panel warned that extreme heat waves now occur five times as often compared to before, and they will hit 14 times as often if warming reaches 2°C.
A 2021 report from the UN’s IPCC panel warned that droughts that used to occur once every 10 years now occur 70% more frequently because of climate change.
Summer 2020 was the Northern Hemisphere’s hottest summer on record. Phoenix, AZ broke several records for the most days above 100°F (144 days), the most days above 110°F (53) and the most days above 115°F (14 days).
Maricopa County, AZ has broken records for the number of people killed by extreme heat for five years in a row. In 2016 there were 154 deaths; in 2017, 179 deaths; in 2018, 182 deaths; and in 2019, 197 deaths. In 2020, the 2019 record was reached in October.
In 2020, across New England, crops suffered widespread losses and 165 community water systems had restrictions in place due to hot and dry conditions. The hot year got an early start when temperatures in Boston, MA soared into the 70s two days in a row on the weekend of January 11-12. In June of that year, Caribou, ME was one of the hottest places east of the Mississippi river, reaching 96°F.
The 2021 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report concluded extreme heat waves now occur five times as often compared to before, and they will hit 14 times as often if warming reaches 2° and droughts that used to occur once every 10 years now occur 70% more frequently. The report also concluded that in order to limit warming to 1.5°C, carbon pollution must be cut by half in the next 10 years and carbon pollution must be reduced to zero by 2050.
Impact On Agriculture
Impact On Agriculture
Climate Change Is Already Impacting U.S. Agriculture, And It Will Get Worse:
The 2014 National Climate Assessment warned:
“Some areas are already experiencing climate-related disruptions, particularly due to extreme weather events.”
“While some U.S. regions and some types of agricultural production will be relatively resilient to climate change over the next 25 years or so, others will increasingly suffer from stresses due to extreme heat, drought, disease, and heavy downpours.”
“From mid-century on, climate change is projected to have more negative impacts on crops and livestock across the country – a trend that could diminish the security of our food supply.”
Extreme Temperatures Impact Livestock Health And Grazing Forage:
Dairy cows are particularly sensitive to heat stress, as it negatively affects their appetite, rumen fermentation, and lactation yield. In 2010, heat stress was estimated to have lowered annual U.S. dairy production by $1.2 billion.
The Montana Farmers Union issued a report projecting a 20 percent drop in Montana range cattle production by 2055 because of climate change.
The drop in Montana cattle production could cost ranchers more than 12,000 jobs and $364 million in earnings due to water shortages, increased temperature and concentrations of carbon that will make grass and hay less digestible and nutritious to livestock.
Drought Will Limit Water Sources And Irrigation:
According to the 2018 National Climate Assessment, “Increased evaporation rates caused by high temperatures, in association with drought, will exacerbate plant stress, yield reduction, fire risks, and depletion of surface and groundwater resources.”
In 2012, more than two thirds of U.S. counties were declared as disaster areas because of severe and extended drought. This drought greatly affected livestock, wheat, corn, and soybean production in the Great Plains and Midwest regions and accounted for $14.5 billion in loss payments by the federal crop insurance program.
Another drought event in 2011 cost over $10 billion in direct losses to the agriculture sector in Texas and Oklahoma alone.
According to the USDA, changing melting of snow pack because of climate change may lead to early melting and loss of water before necessary irrigation periods in the western U.S.
Irrigated agriculture uses more than 95% of the groundwater extracted from the Ogallala Aquifer, and the economy of the region depends almost entirely on irrigated agriculture, but climate change is projected to further increase the duration and intensity of drought over much of the region in the next 50 years.
Drought & Extreme Heat Threats To Critical Infrastructure
Drought & Extreme Heat Threats To Critical Infrastructure
Water And Wastewater Systems:
Groundwater from aquifers supplies around 33% of public water supply and provides drinking water for over 97% of the nation’s rural population.
Drought can cause groundwater to be depleted more quickly than it is replenished, making water unavailable for irrigation and consumption.
In areas that rely on surface water, hot and dry weather exacerbates the situation by increasing the amount of water lost to evaporation.
In 2011, Groesbeck, Texas, came within 2 weeks of exhausting its water supply. The state had to step in and install temporary pipelines to augment the water supply for the small town at a cost of approximately $410,000.
By 2029, chronic service disruptions could cost water-reliant businesses $111 billion and American households a cumulative $378 million in healthcare costs.
Drought can also lead to contamination of fresh groundwater supplies. Water reservoirs may experience increased pollutant levels and lower levels of oxygen, leading to higher concentrations of illness-causing bacteria and protozoa, as well as toxic blue-green algae blooms.
Reduced flow levels in rivers and aquifers can allow saltwater to move inland and also contaminate the water supply. Most water treatment plants are not equipped to remove salts, which can cause problems not only for potable water but also for industrial uses.
In the summer of 2012, saline intrusion into drinking water was reported in Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana.
Transportation Infrastructure:
Extreme heat can impact bridges, roadways, railways, airports, ports and public transportation systems.
Extreme heat makes it difficult for planes to take off as the air gets thinner, resulting in flights being grounded when temperatures soar in cities such as Phoenix and Las Vegas.
Droughts can affect water levels on commerce channels like the Mississippi River.
In 2013, due to ongoing drought, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had to blast, dredge, and clear obstructions on a key stretch of the Mississippi River in order to maintain the necessary 9 feet of water for transport barges to operate.
Extreme heat can disrupt and damage both trains and rail infrastructure:
High temperatures can cause even electric train engines to overheat and break down.
Hot weather can weaken and distort the steel rails that trains run on, making train tracks softer and vulnerable to warping.
Warped or buckled train tracks can easily derail trains, causing further damage to infrastructure and placing lives at risk.
When the risk of buckling rails is high, trains have to slow down, or sometimes stop completely.
In 2021, TriMet, the agency that operates mass transit in the Portland metropolitan area, shut down all MAX and WES train lines due to extreme heat.
Extreme heat across the Pacific Northwest in 2021 melted transportation infrastructure and caused severe delays:
In June, triple-digit temperatures caused delays on trains in California's Bay Area, with some trains running almost 40 minutes late.
Train delays caused by overheated or warped rails are estimated to cost the U.S. between $45 to $60 billion by 2100.
Drought can also cause considerable damage to roads. A 2011 drought in Texas caused $26 million in road damages, and during the 2021 summer heatwave, roads in Everson, WA and Ogden, UT, were shut due to buckling asphalt.
Energy:
High temperatures limit the transfer capability of transmission lines, increase energy losses and cause power lines to sag, which increases wildfire risk by bringing them closer to trees and vegetation.
Transmission lines are designed within limits of how much power they can move while maintaining safe operating conditions relative to air temperatures. When temperatures get too hot, lines can falter.
Spring and fall are traditionally reserved for maintenance, but over the past decade increasing heat waves and cold snaps have forced power plants to remain online during those seasons. At the same time, these facilities need more upkeep as they age and are required to turn off and on more frequently to align their load with more intermittent resources like wind and solar.
Drought conditions across much of the West means less water is available for hydroelectric power. Hydroelectric power may also become unavailable during droughts, and when heat waves coincide with droughts, electricity demands can grow, compounding stress on the grid.
Drought in California was found to “cost” California ratepayers $1.4 billion over the three years ending in October 2014 as a result of reduced hydroelectricity production that was replaced by more expensive natural gas. That fuel switching also increased carbon dioxide emissions by 8%.
Droughts can raise concerns about the reliability of electricity production from plants that require cooling water to safely operate.
Long hot summers can cause higher bills, periodic rationing and blackouts. Higher temperatures boost energy use as people switch on the air conditioning.
Floridians, who already pay 13% more than the national average for electricity, could see annual increases of 5% or more on electric bills due to air conditioning use.
Floridians could pay an additional $122 every year until 2040, totalling up to $2,400 in avoidable costs due to climate change.
California could soon face $200 million a year in increased energy bills to keep homes air conditioned during extreme heat events.
In August 2020, a massive heat wave triggered two consecutive nights of rolling blackouts across California, impacting hundreds of thousands of customers.
In the summer of 2022, California could potentially have a 3,500 megawatt gap between energy demand and supply, which would leave as many as 3.5 million homes without power.
In Texas, severe heat waves in June 2022 led to a record demand on the power grid. Residents were asked to conserve power during high temperatures and avoid using large appliances between peak usage hours.
A report by Climate Central found that between 2000 and 2021, about 83% of reported major outages in the U.S. were attributed to weather-related events.
5% were caused by extreme heat and wildfires.
How Infrastructure Investments Can Help
How Infrastructure Investments Can Help
Upgrades To Water Infrastructure:
Building necessary infrastructure for aquifer storage and recovery, including percolation basins and injection wells, increases climate resilience for seasonal or extended periods of drought while taking advantage of seasonal variations in surface water runoff.
Extreme heat can damage transportation infrastructure by causing kinks in rails from heat expansion and melting airport runways.
Increasing available storage can combat the risk of reduced safe yields of reservoirs caused by drought. Methods for accomplishing this may include raising a dam, practicing aquifer storage and recovery, removing accumulated sediment in reservoirs or lowering water intake elevation.
Installing low-head dams for saltwater wedge and freshwater pool separation can help combat surface water quality issues that arise when rising sea levels, combined with reductions in freshwater runoff due to drought, cause the salt water-freshwater boundary to move further upstream in tidal estuaries.
More frequent droughts may increase receiving water quality limitations. In order to limit wastewater discharges, water recycling infrastructure can be installed in homes and businesses to expand supply and decrease the need to discharge into receiving waters.
The EPA estimates that aging infrastructure, such as leaky pipes and water mains, results in the loss of 2.1 trillion gallons of treated drinking water in the U.S. each year.
There is a water main break every two minutes and an estimated 6 billion gallons of treated water is lost each day in the U.S., enough to fill over 9,000 swimming pools.
The U.S. lost an estimated $7.6 billion of treated water in 2019 due to leaks.
Energy Efficiency Upgrades:
Increasing energy efficiency in buildings uses less water-cooled power and thus can improve resilience to drought.
Installation Of Green Infrastructure:
The installation of green infrastructure can aid in reducing drought conditions that fuel wildfires.
Watershed management techniques that generally focus on preserving or restoring vegetated land cover in a watershed and managing stormwater runoff can help mimic natural watershed hydrology, increasing groundwater recharge, reducing runoff and improving the quality of runoff.
Rain gardens, planter boxes, and bioswales, as well as green streets, can help replenish local groundwater reserves. These infiltration-based practices that can be located in parking lots, along streets, and near buildings, allow rainwater to slowly soak into the ground.
Green infrastructure can also mitigate smog and heat -- key drivers of wildfires in metropolitan areas.
Wildfires
Wildfires
Big Picture
Big Picture
Wildfires are becoming more frequent and more severe. In fact, the 2018 National Climate Assessment found “the area burned by wildfire from 1984 to 2015 was twice what would have burned had climate change not occurred.” Increasing heat, changing rain and snow patterns, shifts in plant communities, and other climate-fuelled changes have vastly increased the likelihood that fires will start more often and burn more intensely and widely.
Wildfires, climate change, and our country’s aging electricity infrastructure are inextricably linked. Approximately 10% of wildfire ignitions are sparked by faults on electrical infrastructure or electric equipment failure. Transmission lines have limits for how much power they can safely at different outside air temperatures, so the hotter the air gets, the harder it is to get power where it is needed and the higher the risk of starting a fire. At the same time, wildfires burn and destroy high tension electric transmission lines, causing billions of dollars of damage. Making the switch to clean, renewable sources of electricity and modernizing the grid is absolutely critical to limiting the impacts of large wildfires.
Link To Climate Change
Link To Climate Change
Climate change is a key factor in increasing the risk and extent of wildfires, particularly across the Western U.S.
According to the 2022 IPCC report, large wildfires will increasingly endanger lives, livelihoods, mental and physical health, property, key infrastructure, and economic activities and contribute to compromised air quality and municipal water contamination with multiple human health implications.
Research shows that changes in climate create warmer, drier conditions that boost increases in wildfire risk.
Thanks to climate change, wildfires are now occurring higher up mountain slopes at elevations previously thought to be too wet to burn.
A 2021 report from the UN’s IPCC panel warned that fire weather will increase as temperatures warm to 1.5°and grow even further at 2°C.
Increasing heat, changing rain and snow patterns, shifts in plant communities, and other climate-fuelled changes have vastly increased the likelihood that fires will start more often and burn more intensely and widely.
A 2016 study found that over 70% of the area burned in forest fires between 1970 and 2012 occurred in years where the winter snowfall disappeared early.
Higher autumn temperatures and a reduction in precipitation— particularly a growing delay in the onset of winter rains, which usually puts an end to the fire season in California — have led to a 20% increase in the number of autumn days with conditions ripe for wildfires.
Due to both warming temperatures pushing springtime earlier in the year and higher temperatures and a lack of rain extending into autumn, the western fire season has extended by at least 84 days since the 1970s.
Lower precipitation and warmer air temperatures dry out forests and other vegetation. This increased drought coupled with strong winds and decades of fire suppression is a recipe for wildfire ignition.
A recent study found that human-caused climate change is responsible for more than half of the drying-out of burnable materials and consequent fire risk since the 1970s.
For much of the U.S. West projections show that an average annual 1°C temperature increase would increase the median burned area per year by as much as 600% in some types of forests.
Acres burned by wildfire have doubled in recent decades due to climate change.
California and Oregon’s 2020 fire season held the highest fire intensity of the past 18 years.
The 2021 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report concluded fire weather will increase as temperatures warm to 1.5°and grow even further at 2°C.
Billowing black smoke during wildfire disasters has caused atmospheric carbon monoxide levels to increase.
Wildfires raging across the west can impact the air locally and afar, with the potential to affect millions across the country.
The toxic output from fires is dangerous, contributing to an estimated loss of more than 15,000 lives in the US each year. Some scientists say that number will double by the end of the century.
Smoke from western fires has also been attributed to up to 5,900 asthma-related emergency department visits a year.
Death And Damages
Death And Damages
In 2021 Alone, Wildfires Caused $10.8 Billion In Damages and 8 Deaths:
Over 7.1 million acres burned nationally during the 2021 wildfire season.
In 2021, California’s Dixie Fire became the second largest wildfire in the state’s history and the largest in 2021.
It is also the first known fire to move across the Sierra Nevada mountain range from the western foothills to the eastern valleys.
The end of 2021 and beginning of 2022 saw a rare winter blaze in Colorado that became the most destructive in the state’s history.
Throughout the wildfire season air quality was also a concern across numerous states, as ash and fine particulates from wildfires obscured the skies and made outdoor activities more hazardous.
From 2011-2021, wildfires have led to the displacement of 2.8 million people in the U.S.
In 2020 Alone, Wildfires Caused $17.9 Billion In Damages And 46 Deaths:
Record-breaking western wildfires in 2020 caused an estimated $17.9 billion in damages and 46 deaths.
More than 10.2 million acres were burned across western states.
2020 was the worst wildfire season in history for both California and Colorado - with California seeing 5 of the 6 largest fires in state history and over 4.1 million acres burned.
Approximately 10,500 structures were damaged or destroyed across California. Oregon also had historic levels of wildfire damage, with over 2,000 structures burned.
Oregon’s 2020 wildfire season set records for the amount of destruction. From 2015 to 2019, Oregon lost a combined 93 homes to wildfire. In 2020, 4,009 homes were destroyed.
Colorado saw its three largest wildfires on record burn during 2020 - including its first 200,000 acre fire.
Agriculture Impact
Agriculture Impact
Wildfires Can Destroy Or Impair Both Crops And Livestock:
Researchers found that air pollution from wildfires can substantially reduce plant productivity even hundreds of kilometers away from the direct impact zone of a wildfire.
Air pollution from nearby wildfires has made working in the fields during harvest time even more dangerous for farmworkers.
Wildfires across the western U.S. in 2020 caused devastating losses of wine grapes and hemp/marijuana crops.
Nearly 300 animals – mainly horses, sheep, goats and alpacas – were killed in Solano County, CA during the 2020 LNU Lightning Complex fire.
Animals that survive being caught in or near wildfires can still experience long-term health impacts that can lead cattle to stop eating and deteriorate in condition.
Grazing rangelands can show about a 40% loss of production in the first growing season after a fire, and about 20% in the second year.
Threats To Critical Infrastructure
Threats To Critical Infrastructure
By 2029, chronic service disruptions could cost water-reliant businesses $111 billion and American households a cumulative $378 million in healthcare costs.
Wildfires burn and destroy high tension electric transmission lines, causing billions of dollars of damage.
Approximately 10% of wildfire ignitions are sparked by faults on electrical infrastructure or electric equipment failure. Power shut offs due to wildfires are a growing risk, and aging power infrastructure will only cause more fires.
In March 2022, the state auditor reported that state officials are failing to hold California’s electric utilities accountable for preventing fires caused by their equipment.
The report to the California Legislature found that the new Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety approved utility companies’ wildfire prevention plans even when they were “seriously deficient.”
Included were plans by Pacific Gas & Electric, California’s largest utility, which was held responsible for sparking the state’s deadliest wildfire, the Camp Fire that killed 85 people in 2018.
Since 2015, power lines have caused six of California’s 20 most-destructive wildfires.
Acting State Auditor raised concerns about the increasing numbers of so-called public safety power shutoffs, when companies cut power during times of high fire risk.
Transmission lines are designed within limits of how much power they can move while maintaining safe operating conditions relative to air temperatures.
A report by Climate Central found that between 2000 and 2021, about 83% of reported major outages in the U.S. were attributed to weather-related events.
5% were caused by extreme heat and wildfires.
How Infrastructure Investments Can Help
How Infrastructure Investments Can Help
Electrical Grid Infrastructure:
Upgrades to power system infrastructure - including undergrounding of power lines, installing fast-tripping protection systems, and constructing weather monitoring stations to respond to electrical system fire risks - will all aid in reducing wildfire risk.
Where undergrounding of power lines is too difficult or costly, hardening of overhead power lines and installation of fault location equipment is recommended.
Building Infrastructure Upgrades:
Building design and materials can mitigate destruction by wildfires. The University of California found a direct link between home survival and the building materials and design used in construction.
Upgrading existing houses and ensuring roofing in new construction are fitted with Class A fire rating materials reduces ignition potential.
Installing multi-pane tempered glass windows or windows made from special fire-rated glass will provide protection against fire embers.
Upgrading ventilation systems also reduces the risk of embers entering homes.
Installation Of Green Infrastructure:
The installation of green infrastructure can aid in reducing drought conditions that fuel wildfires.
Rain gardens, planter boxes, and bioswales, as well as green streets, can help replenish local groundwater reserves. These infiltration-based practices that can be located in parking lots, along streets, and near buildings, allow rainwater to slowly soak into the ground.
Green infrastructure can also mitigate smog and heat -- key drivers of wildfires in metropolitan areas.
Extreme Cold And Winter Storms
Extreme Cold And Winter Storms
Big Picture
Big Picture
Winter storms can range from normal snow over a few hours to a blizzard with blinding, wind-driven snow that lasts for several days. Many winter storms bring dangerously low temperatures and sometimes, strong winds, icing, sleet, and freezing rain. In the long term, instances of extreme heat are expected to outnumber and outweigh instances of extreme cold, and even if extreme cold events don’t reach record low temperatures, they can still be extremely disruptive to infrastructure and lifestyles if the cold weather is far from what is normally expected in a given location and time of year.
Exposure to cold temperatures can cause serious or life-threatening health problems, such as hypothermia and frostbite. Children, the elderly, low-income people and unhoused people are particularly at risk from the health impacts of extreme cold. Ability to feel temperature changes decreases with age, making older people more susceptible to health problems caused by cold.
Transitioning to clean energy and improving energy efficiency is essential in preventing winter weather from knocking out heat, power, and communication, sometimes for days at a time. Home weatherization and insulation can help combat extreme cold, but low-income families often lack the means to get these resources.
Death And Damages
Death And Damages
In 2021 Alone, Freeze Events And Winter Storms Caused At Least $180 Billion In Damages And 700 U.S. Deaths:
In February 2021, Winter Storm Uri caused over $180 billion in damages to Texas businesses, landowners and families.
More than 4.5 million homes and businesses lost power during Winter Storm Uri because of the lack of preparation to modernize critical infrastructure.
The 2021 electricity blackouts in Texas left more than 700 dead and millions without drinking water, even after the lights came back on.
Experts and community groups say that many marginalized communities were the first to be hit with power outages and the last to be reconnected.
By February 16th, 2021, 73% of the Lower 48 states was covered by snow, the most widespread snow cover of the contiguous United States in 17 years.
Link To Climate Change
Link To Climate Change
Direct scientific observations and computer simulations show that warming in the Arctic, caused by human-made climate change, is a key driver of periodic extreme cold snaps.
A 2015 study found that severe winters over North America are related to anomalous warmth in the East Siberian–Chukchi Sea region.
Regional warming over the Arctic Ocean is accompanied by the development of an anomalous anticyclone and the downstream development of a mid-latitude trough.
The resulting northerly flow of cold air provides favorable conditions for severe winters in North America.
A 2018 study found that severe winter weather in the United States is significantly related to anomalies in pan-Arctic geopotential heights and temperatures.
When the Arctic warming trend is greatest and extends into the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere, severe winter weather, including both cold spells and heavy snows, becomes more frequent in the eastern United States.
Rising temperatures and reduced sea ice in the Arctic are behind some of the worst recent mid-latitude cold waves in North America and Eurasia.
Extreme cold snaps have been linked to a stretching of the polar vortex in the stratosphere which is driven by human-caused climate change.
The polar vortex is a large area of low pressure and cold air around the Earth’s North Pole.
The polar jet stream is sustained by a temperature difference between the warmer mid-latitudes and the polar region, and the Earth’s rotation.
When the temperature difference across the jet stream is large, it tends to keep the polar vortex stable. But when the difference is small, the jet stream is typically weaker and more susceptible to twisting and curving.
A 2021 study found that heating in the Arctic ultimately disturbed the circular pattern of winds known as the polar vortex, leading to extreme cold such as winter storm Uri in February 2021.
Polar vortex stretching has become more common over the last 40 years, demonstrating how Arctic warming may be driving winter extremes in the U.S., producing intense cold spells in a warming climate.
The polar vortex is a semi-permanent pool of cold air over the poles about 10 to 30 miles high. When the vortex is stretched out, shifts in the jet stream at lower altitudes can push cold surface air into the mid-latitudes, including the U.S.
Threats To Critical Infrastructure
Threats To Critical Infrastructure
One of the main concerns is that winter weather can knock out heat, power, and communication, sometimes for days at a time.
When power fails and people resort to space heaters and fireplaces to stay warm, the risk of household fires increases, as well as the risk of deadly carbon monoxide poisoning.
Lack of power can make water stop flowing through systems with aged pipes. Aged pipes can also freeze and result in a number of burst pipes.
A Department of Homeland Security analysis found that the Transportation and Energy Sectors are most likely to experience the greatest infrastructure impacts from severe winter storms.
Threats To Transportation Infrastructure:
Lower-income families may not be able to stock up on essentials ahead of the storm, have access to transportation in the event of an emergency or afford precautions like renters or flood insurance, leaving them vulnerable when disaster strikes.
During winter storms, public transportation can shut down, those without their own cars are left out in the cold.
Threats To The Electrical Grid:
The American Society of Civil Engineers gave the United States’ energy infrastructure a C- grade in 2021. According to the ASCE’s report card: “The majority of the nation’s grid is aging, with some components over a century old — far past their 50-year life expectancy — and others, including 70% of T&D lines, are well into the second half of their lifespans.”
Weather-related outages and aging energy infrastructure were estimated to have cost $28 to $169 annually.
A report by Climate Central found that between 2000 and 2021, about 83% of reported major outages in the U.S. were attributed to weather-related events.
22% were caused by winter weather, including snow, ice, and freezing rain.
Cold waves, heavy snow and the accumulation of ice can cause overhead power lines and towers to fail.
Overloading of conductors and ground wires by heavy icing, combined with wind forces, can cause them to break and even lead to tower collapse.
Home weatherization and insulation can help combat extreme cold, but low-income families often lack the means to get these resources.
Just as electricity usage spikes during periods of extreme heat, demand for energy skyrockets during cold spells and winter storms.
During extreme cold temperatures, the continuous use of heat pumps, emergency heat systems and electric space heaters cause the demand for energy to increase substantially.
When power fails and people resort to space heaters and fireplaces to stay warm, the risk of household fires increases, as well as the risk of deadly carbon monoxide poisoning.
2022: Winter Storm Landon
One year after Winter Storm Uri, Winter Storm Landon caused the worst icing in Texas state history. Winter Storm Landon delivered feet of snow and damaging ice through more than a dozen states in early February 2022.
At the peak of the storm, more than 330,000 homes and businesses lost power in the storm's wake, from Pennsylvania to Texas.
2021: Winter Storm Uri
The storm caused the deaths of as many as 700 people and an estimated $86 billion to $129 billion in economic damage.
At its peak, Winter Storm Uri led to widespread blackouts leaving 4.5 million homes and businesses without power in Texas. About 70% of Texans lost power, and about 50% had disruptions in water service.
Winter Storm Uri resulted in record amounts of snow in Texas, impacting all 254 counties. All sources of electricity struggled during the frigid temperatures and power outages led to a decrease in natural gas production.
In Texas, experts estimate that nearly $50 billion worth of electricity was consumed during the one-week storm; 250 times the normal cost.
Texas’s energy grid is mostly disconnected from the rest of the country, and when power infrastructure failed as it did during Winter Storm Uri, Texas couldn’t borrow power from other states. The state has the same risk during extreme heat waves.
Line-loss cost Harris County half a million dollars, a 2,800% increase from 2020. In Tarrant County, line-loss cost more than $300,000, representing an increase of almost 6,000%.
Mississippi’s power grid system broke down during the February winter storms, leaving more than 50,000 people without power for weeks.
2021’s storms cost Entergy $2 billion, which will eventually be passed down to ratepayers.
A cold snap in 2011 caused widespread power outages in the south central United States, leading to a report from FERC that recommended steps to protect power generating stations from extreme weather.
A 2010 report found that winter weather is one of the most common problems for utilities in Colorado.
How Infrastructure Investments Can Help
How Infrastructure Investments Can Help
Electrical Grid Infrastructure:
Blackouts in Texas in 2021 showed the impact of failing to prepare our infrastructure for extreme weather:
More than 4.5 million homes and businesses lost power during Winter Storm Uri because of the lack of preparation to modernize critical infrastructure.
Winter Storm Uri caused over $180 billion in damages to Texas businesses, landowners and families.
According to Dan Woodfin, a senior director at ERCOT, the main reasons for the outages are frozen instruments at natural gas, coal, and nuclear facilities, as well as limited supplies of natural gas.
A cold snap in 2011 caused widespread power outages in the south central United States, leading to a report from FERC that recommended steps to protect power generating stations from extreme weather.
Developing a resilient energy infrastructure includes ensuring that energy is produced by diverse sources.
Infrastructure hardening helps communities that are vulnerable to extreme cold and winter storms.
Hardened high-voltage wires, meaning burying the lines (where practical), reinforced transmission poles, or poles with stronger materials (i.e., concrete), ensures that high winds would not disrupt electricity transmission and distribution.
Winterized power generation facilities can withstand extended periods of below-freezing temperatures.
A recent study shows that electricity blackouts can be avoided across the nation by switching to 100% clean and renewable energy, such as solar, wind and water.
The study showed that the U.S. can meet its energy demands with renewables every 30 seconds across the nation with no blackouts, even with a more populated nation in 2050 and 2051.
Researchers found that a switch to renewables would also lower energy demands, reduce consumer costs, create millions of new jobs and improve people’s health.
The study found that transitioning to a clean energy grid could create some 4.7 million more permanent jobs than those lost from the fossil fuel industry.
Under a grid powered by renewables, no blackouts occur, even during winter in Texas.
The 2022 IPCC report concluded that the prices of solar and wind energy, and electric vehicle batteries, have dropped significantly since 2010 and it may now be “more expensive” in some cases to maintain highly polluting energy systems than to switch to clean sources.
Building Infrastructure Upgrades:
Home weatherization and insulation can help combat extreme cold, but low-income families often lack the means to get these resources.
Upgrades To Water Infrastructure:
A 2018 Environmental Protection Agency study found that the nation’s drinking water infrastructure needs $472.6 billion in investments through 2038.
Replacing aging pipes can prevent pipes from bursting and water system shutdowns during extreme cold events and winter storms.
Installing generators to keep water pumping and flowing to customers and help prevent pipes from freezing and breaking when the power goes out.
Tornadoes
Tornadoes
Link To Climate Change
Link To Climate Change
Tornadoes are super-charged by warm, moist air, an unstable atmosphere, and wind at different levels moving in different directions at different speeds (known as wind shear.)
As global temperatures rise, conditions ripe for tornado development are likely to become more common. A hotter atmosphere is able to hold more moisture, increasing atmospheric instability, while wind shear is likely to decrease.
A 2018 study found the U.S.’s “Tornado Alley” may be shifting eastwards to the densely populated Southeast region.
An eastwards shift could lead to a threefold increase in disaster potential.
Drier, desert air shifting farther eastwards into the Southeast, which is caused by climate change, is likely behind the shifting tornado threat zone.
Climate change is projected to make the desert Southwest even drier. And this drier air will continue to move farther into Tornado Alley. At the same time, climate models predict more moisture and severe weather in the Gulf States.
One of the study’s authors, Dr. Victor Gensini of Northern Illinois University, stated there is "no supporting evidence" that the cause for the shift is natural.
Most researchers agree that if temperatures exceed the Paris Climate Agreement's goal of 2 degrees Celsius, the number of tornadoes will increase.
Deaths And Damages
Deaths And Damages
The U.S. ranks first in the world for the number of tornadoes, seeing on average more than 1,200 annually - that’s four times as many as the rest of the world combined.
On average, tornadoes in the U.S. kill 80 people and injure 1,500 more each year.
In 2021, Tornado And Associated Severe Weather Events, Not Including Tropical Storms Or Hurricanes, Caused At Least $8.9 Billion In Damages And 104 Deaths:
On December 15, 2021, a rare, record-breaking December derecho (fast-moving line of severe storms) and tornado outbreak that was focused across Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin caused $1.8 billion in damages and 1 death.
There were many reports of hurricane-force thunderstorm wind gusts and more than 50 tornadoes causing widespread damage to homes, vehicles, businesses and infrastructure.
This was the first December derecho on record to occur within the United States. This event also produced the first December tornado on record in Minnesota since 1950.
On December 10, 2021, a historic December tornado outbreak across several southeast and central states caused $4 billion in devastating damages and 93 deaths.
This outbreak produced two long-tracked EF-4 tornadoes across Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee and Kentucky. The longest tornado track was nearly 166 miles across Kentucky and a small portion of Tennessee.
This day was also the deadliest December tornado outbreak recorded in the United States with 93 deaths.
In May 2021, tornadoes and severe storms with widespread high wind and large hail caused $1.3 billion in damages across many Southern and Southeastern states including Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee.
In March 2021, at least 41 tornadoes, including one EF-4, four EF-3s, ten EF-2s and approximately two-dozen EF-1 or EF-0 tornadoes, caused $1.8 billion in damages and led to 6 deaths in several states including Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia.
In 2020, Tornado And Associated Severe Weather Events, Not Including Tropical Storms Or Hurricanes, Caused At Least $28.5 Billion In Damages And 82 Deaths:
In August 2020, a derecho (fast-moving line of severe storms) with wind speed over 90 mph ripped through Iowa and other Central states, causing $11.2 billion in damages and 4 deaths.
The derecho destroyed or severely damaged 8,200 homes and 143 million acres of corn across Iowa. Researchers at Iowa State and the National Weather Service say climate change may be the reason the derecho in August was so severe.
Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Indiana and Ohio were most impacted by the severe weather event. In addition, there were 15 tornadoes across northeastern Illinois, several affecting the Chicago metropolitan area.
The derecho caused widespread damage to millions of acres of corn and soybean crops across central Iowa, as well as severe damage to homes, businesses and vehicles.
The August derecho and tornadoes marked the third severe weather event (since 1980) with inflation-adjusted costs over $10.0 ($10.2) billion joining the late-April and May 2011 tornado outbreaks across the Southeastern and Central states.
The $12.6 billion in damage from the severe storms made it the most expensive severe weather outbreak in world history.
In May 2020, a combination of thunderstorm high winds, hail and tornadoes caused $1.6 billion in damages and 2 deaths.
The severe weather affected numerous Southern, Central and Eastern states, including Texas, Illinois and North Carolina, causing damage to homes, businesses and vehicles.
In April 2020, high winds, hail and tornadoes across the Southern U.S. caused $1.4 billion in damages and 3 deaths.
The states most affected included Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida and Virginia. The states with the highest damage totals for the event were Oklahoma, Louisiana and Texas.
In April 2020, an outbreak of at least 140 tornadoes from Texas to Maryland caused $3.6 billion in damages and 35 deaths.
The tornado outbreak included 3 EF4s, 12 EF3s, 20 EF2s, 77 EF1s and 28 EF0s. Damage was extensive and highly destructive to many homes, vehicles and businesses across more than a dozen Southeast and Eastern states.
In April 2020, an outbreak of more than 20 tornadoes, numerous hail storms and high winds across many North Central and Ohio Valley states caused $3 billion in damages.
In March 2020, a dozen tornadoes, hailstorms and high winds across many Midwest and Ohio Valley states caused $2.6 billion in damages.
In March 2020, tornadoes and severe weather across Tennessee and severe other southeastern states caused $2.5 billion in damages and 25 deaths.
Powerful EF-3 and EF-4 tornadoes caused considerable damage across the Nashville metropolitan area and several counties east of Nashville. Damage included many homes, businesses, vehicles, as well as 90 planes and numerous buildings at the Nashville airport.
In February 2020, more than 20 tornadoes across central Mississippi and Tennessee, combined with other severe weather across the South, East and Northeastern U.S., caused $1.4 billion in damages and 3 deaths.
In January 2020, more than 80 tornadoes and severe storms across many Southeastern states caused $1.2 billion in damages and 10 deaths.
Threats To Critical Infrastructure
Threats To Critical Infrastructure
Tornadoes can have devastating impacts on water and wastewater utility infrastructure systems:
Tornadoes can severely damage water infrastructure, including storage tanks, hydrants, residential plumbing fixtures, and distribution systems, resulting in loss of service and/or reduced pressure throughout the system.
Debris and damaged roadways from tornadoes can restrict access to water facilities.
Tornadoes can cause a loss of power and communication lines.
Damage to water infrastructure from tornadoes can result in potential water contamination due to chemical leaks from ruptured containers.
Damage to water infrastructure from tornadoes can cause severe water and pressure loss due to ruptured service lines in damaged buildings and broken fire hydrants from airborne debris.
The zone of the country most susceptible to tornadoes, known as "Tornado Alley," may be shifting eastward due to climate change. These new at-risk areas are more densely populated and the majority of homes were not built to withstand strong tornadoes.
How Infrastructure Investments Can Help
How Infrastructure Investments Can Help
When rebuilding homes in tornado-prone areas, or when considering new construction, weatherization can reduce the harshest impacts of tornadoes.
Creating load path continuity from the roof-to-wall connections through to the floor-to-foundation connections and installing laminated windows to minimize airborne missiles are some ways in which buildings can be strengthened against tornado impacts.
The risk to buildings and homes in tornado alley could be lessened with upgrades to the mechanical connections that attach roofs to walls, walls to floors, and floors to a building’s foundation. Current building codes in tornado alley require connections be made with only nails, but metal connectors could be used for optimal strength and wind resistance, up to 130-135 mph.
Construction of a reinforced area, a shelter of sorts, is recommended in buildings such as schools in order to save lives.
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