This paper evaluates whether mangroves can mitigate the impact of hurricanes on economic activity. The paper assembles a new, regionwide panel data set that measures local economic activity using nightlights, potential hurricane damages using a detailed hurricane windstorm model, and mangrove protection by mapping the width of mangrove forests on …
The Caribbean is a sprawling sea of deep nutrient-poor waters punctuated by great oases of biomass production and diversity of species, otherwise known as coral reefs. These reef systems circumscribe the shallow seafloor surrounding islands and delimit the continental shelf edge abutting contiguous landmasses: They also populate sunken and receding …
Every year, disasters related to weather, climate and water hazards cause significant loss of life and set back economic and social development by years, if not decades From 1970 to 2012, 8 835 disasters, 1 94 million deaths and US$ 2 4 trillion of economic losses were reported globally as …
Annual property losses from hurricanes and other coastal storms of $35 billion; a decline in crop yields of 14 percent, costing corn and wheat farmers tens of billions of dollars; heat wave-driven demand for electricity costing utility customers up to $12 billion per year. These are among the economic costs …
Computer scientists are picking a new fight with old school meteorologists, claiming finally to have cracked the code on weather forecasting at a pivotal, profitable moment for the field, as climate change roils commodities markets and industries. Banks and traders are reporting outsized profits, and losses, on everything from natural …
Would more residents of New Orleans have evacuated ahead of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 if it had been named Kurt? A study published on Monday suggests they would have, perhaps reducing Katrina's death toll of more than 1,800. Because people unconsciously think a storm with a female name is less …
Government has allocated $50 million to the National Works Agency (NWA) to implement mitigation measures for the 2014 hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30. Communications Manager at the NWA, Stephen Shaw, said that $20 million of the amount will be spent in the South Eastern parishes …
Typhoons, cyclones and hurricanes worldwide are shifting out of the tropics and more toward the poles and generally larger populations, likely because of global warming, a new study finds. Atlantic hurricanes, however, don’t follow this trend. While other studies have looked at the storms’ strength and frequency, this is the …
Synoptic-scale African easterly waves (AEWs) impact weather throughout the greater Atlantic basin. Over the African continent, AEWs are instrumental in initiating and organizing precipitation in the drought-vulnerable Sahel region. AEWs also serve as the precursors to the most intense Atlantic hurricanes, and contribute to the global transport of Saharan dust. …
The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday advanced a bill that would require U.S. government weather agencies to focus more on predicting storms and less on climate studies. The chamber passed the measure, HR 2413, on a voice vote. Prospects in the Democrat-controlled Senate are uncertain, although the House …
President Barack Obama, who has vowed to make fighting global warming a focus of his remaining years in office, yesterday unveiled initiatives to mitigate what aides say are the effects of an already changing climate. The proposals, spread throughout Obama’s 2015 budget blueprint to Congress, include an overhaul of the …
Billions of dollars in U.S. damage from mega-storms Katrina and Sandy might have been avoided with a perhaps surprising device — wind turbines. That's the finding of a ground-breaking study today that says mammoth offshore wind farms can tame hurricanes rather than be destroyed by them. It says a phalanx …
The 2013 Atlantic storm season has proved one of the quietest in decades with the lowest number of hurricanes since 1982 and none of them considered 'major', according to insurance broker Willis Re. An unusually quiet hurricane season is significant for the insurance industry not only because there are fewer …
The death toll from hurricane-force Storm Xaver sweeping across northern Europe rose to six on Friday when high winds hurled a tree limb against a car, killing three people, local emergency services said. Xaver blasted into northern Europe late Thursday after disrupting transport and power in northern Britain and flooding …
Bangladesh has ranked fifth among 10 countries most vulnerable to climate change-induced natural disasters in the last two decades from 1993 to 2012, according to a new report. During the period, Bangladesh suffered damages worth US$1,832.70 million, wrought by 242 types of natural catastrophes, states the Climate Risk Index (CRI) …
Five days before the anniversary of Superstorm Sandy's strike on the U.S. Northeast, the Interior Department announced $162 million in funding for research and restoration projects to help protect the Atlantic Coast from future storms. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced the aid on Thursday at New Jersey's Edwin B. Forsythe …
Intense and destructive storms are likely to occur more frequently as global warming intensifies, Greenpeace said on Saturday. "Such intense and destructive storms are likely to become more frequent in the future as global warming intensifies. Even a small increase in the ocean's warmth can turn tropical disturbances into hurricanes …
NEW DELHI: Intense and destructive storms are likely to occur more frequently as global warming intensifies, Greenpeace said on Saturday. "Such intense and destructive storms are likely to become more frequent in the future as global warming intensifies. Even a small increase in the ocean's warmth can turn tropical disturbances …
Scientists predict stronger storms but say changing air patterns will prevent them from hitting US east coast A recurrence of Superstorm Sandy – which barrelled head-on into the Atlantic coast, swamping New York City and large parts of New Jersey – is less likely under climate change, new research suggests. …
Twenty-first-century projections of Atlantic climate change are downscaled to explore the robustness of potential changes in hurricane activity. Multimodel ensembles using the phase 3 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP3)/Special Report on Emissions Scenarios A1B (SRES A1B; late-twenty-first century) and phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5)/representative …
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said Thursday that the year 2012 was the ninth warmest on record despite the cooling influence of a La Nina episode early in the year. The WMO's Statement on the Status of the Global Climate said that the global land and ocean surface temperature in …
