NOAA Retires Extreme Weather Database (cnn.com)
- Reference: 0177392935
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/05/08/203254/noaa-retires-extreme-weather-database
- Source link: https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/08/climate/noaa-ends-disaster-database
> The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday its well-known " [1]billion-dollar weather and climate disasters" database "will be retired," a move that will make it next to [2]impossible for the public to track the cost of extreme weather and climate events . The weather, climate and oceans agency is also ending other products, it has recently announced, due in large part to staffing reductions. NOAA is narrowing the array of services it provides, with climate-related programs scrutinized especially closely.
>
> The disasters database, which will be archived but no longer updated beyond 2024, has allowed taxpayers, media and researchers to track the cost of natural disasters -- spanning extreme events from hurricanes to hailstorms -- since 1980. Its discontinuation is another Trump-administration blow to the public's view into how fossil fuel pollution is changing the world around them and making extreme weather more costly. [...]
>
> The database vacuums loss information from throughout the insurance industry, among other public and private sources. According to the database, there were 403 weather and climate disasters totally at least $1 billion in the United States since 1980, totaling more than $2.945 trillion. As of April 8, there had not been any confirmed billion-dollar disasters so far in 2025, but it lists four events as having the potential to make the tally, including the Los Angeles-area wildfires in January. Between 1980 and 2024, there were nine such disasters on average each year, though in the past five years, that annual average has jumped to 24. The [3]record for one year was 28 events in 2023.
"What makes this resource uniquely valuable is not just its standardized methodology across decades, but the fact that it draws from proprietary and non-public data sources (such as reinsurance loss estimates, localized government reports, and private claims databases) that are otherwise inaccessible to most researchers," Jeremy Porter, head of climate implications for and co-founder of First Street, a climate risk financial modeling firm, told CNN via email.
"Without it, replicating or extending damage trend analyses, especially at regional scales or across hazard types, is nearly impossible without significant funding or institutional access to commercial catastrophe models."
[1] https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/billions/
[2] https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/08/climate/noaa-ends-disaster-database
[3] https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/beyond-data/2024-active-year-us-billion-dollar-weather-and-climate-disasters
The silence of the sheep (Score:1)
Not American. At first glance, this looks like an effective method for pulling the wool over the eyes of the gormless proletariat. Presumably there would be corresponding suppression in the news with regards to unprofitable weather events.
However, will they also need to find an effective solution to prevent the common scum from discussing unprofitable weather events in public?
For example, people are definitely going to realise that somethingâ(TM)s awry when their home is destroyed. That sort of thing i
If you live in a disaster prone area (Score:2)
You are on your own for the next 4 years, longer unless a miracle happens because voter suppression means the Republicans are likely to win and Trump is likely to get a third term.
This means that if a storm destroys your property there isn't going to be anything there to rebuild it. The insurance companies you're paying out so much money to will go under or they will Stonewall you with lawsuits you can't possibly win. The courts are packed with pro corporate judges so you are unlikely to get very far.
When does it stop? (Score:2)
I just read an article that was 'hopeful', pointing out Trump is losing more cases than winning that are brought against him because of the government's actions. Show me the parts of his agenda that are good for Americans, where a win for him isn't a loss for everyone else.
Free press, an impartial adversarial judicial system, due process... pretty much everything Americans have held as necessary to their pursuit of happiness is being destroyed while those who aren't cheering it on sit idly by.
You're less t
It doesn't (Score:2)
Trump can basically do anything he wants and no one can stop him because the only serious threat to his power is that the Democrats would win in a landslide taking a supermajority in the Senate.
In order for that to happen the Democrats would have to wield the power they have in order to shut down voter suppression. This would involve basically ignoring court orders as needed in order to ram voting rights cases up to State supreme courts where they have majorities.
They absolutely have the power to do