Floods

Members of the Philippine Coast Guard wade through floods during a rescue operation, in Isabela City, Basilan province, Philippines, January 11, 2023.Philippine Coast Guard | via ReutersThe Philippines has grappled with heavy rain, flooding and landslides since the beginning of January, prompting evacuations and spurring President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to declare an official "state of calamity" in the southern province of Misamis Occidental.At least 28 people have died in January, according to the National Disaster Risk…

In less than a week, the story about California’s weather shifted dramatically. Just before New Year’s Eve, the state was running out of water following two decades of severe drought. Then, it started to rain and rain. Over the last two weeks, California was battered by a series of atmospheric rivers — narrow corridors of water in the sky — that utterly drenched the region, killing people and damaging homes and highways. From extreme drought, the focus on California has quickly pivoted to extreme floods. There’s a…

Flooded Lake House, Keswick, Cumbria, U.K. Credit: Gavin Lynn More people are vulnerable to the effects of flooding than ever before due to changes in climate, land use, infrastructure and population growth in recent decades. It is, therefore, crucial to accurately predict flood frequency and severity to reduce physical and economic losses. …

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain With a new analysis of long-term climate data, researchers say they now have a much better understanding of how climate change can impact and cause sea water temperatures on one side of the Indian Ocean to be so much warmer or cooler than the temperatures on the other—a phenomenon that can lead to sometimes deadly weather-related events like megadroughts in East Africa and severe flooding in…

After a brief lull in precipitation Tuesday, forecasters are warning of another “atmospheric river” expected to bring heavy rains and winds to an already-saturated California. The National Weather Service is warning of “widespread flooding” and strong winds across the state Wednesday and Thursday, with most dangerous conditions expected in Northern California — a region that has already seen significant flooding and power outages this week. “It’s going to be a very impressive storm Wednesday and Thursday,” said Rich…

In just a few months this year, abnormally low water levels in rivers led China to shut down factories, and floods inundated one-third of Pakistan, killing around 1,500 people and grinding the country to a halt. A dried-up Rhine River threatened to tip Germany’s economy into recession, because cargo ships could not carry standard loads. And the Las Vegas strip turned into a river and flooded casinos, chasing customers away. It seems that such water disasters pepper the news daily now. Many businesses have long lobbied…

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt—The United Nations and the U.S. are working to expand the network of weather stations across sub-Saharan Africa, south Asia and the Caribbean and Pacific island regions to create a climate early-warning system that can better anticipate severe droughts, heat waves, tropical storms and floods.Less than half of the U.N.’s 193 member countries are covered by early-warning systems, and less-developed and island nations are contributing only 10% of the weather data that the World Meteorological…

Extreme rainfall in Nigeria triggered catastrophic floods this summer that killed hundreds and displaced more than a million people. A new study finds that the influence of global warming made the downpours 80 times more probable. It’s the latest report from the international research consortium World Weather Attribution, which specializes in the links between climate change and extreme weather events. So far this year, the organization has identified the fingerprints of global warming in deadly flooding in Pakistan and …

The flood basalts in Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica, originate from exceptionally deep mantle source. Credit: Arto Luttinen An international group of geologists has demonstrated with computer simulation that huge magma eruptions can initiate deeper below the Earth's surface than previously believed. Such flood basalt eruptions have caused many global climate changes and great mass extinction events in the past.…

As I wandered past empty homes plastered with “No Trespassing” signs, I could see the economic logic of the island’s “planned deconstruction.” At the same time, the injustice was pretty glaring. The Biloxi and the Choctaw had come to Louisiana after they’d been dispossessed of ancestral lands farther east. The Isle de Jean Charles band had been able to live peacefully on the island only because it was too isolated and commercially irrelevant for anyone else to take an interest in. The band had had no say in the dredging…