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 …
An area of low pressure located east of the Caribbean Sea has a 50 percent chance of becoming a tropical depression or storm in the next 48 hours, U.S. forecasters said on Thursday. "For the five-day (forecast) that's raised up to a 70 percent probability," U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) …
Hawaiians braced for a one-two punch from a pair of major storms headed their way on Wednesday, as Hurricane Iselle bore down on the islands packing high winds and heavy surf and Julio, tracking right behind, was upgraded to hurricane status. Iselle was about 620 miles (997 km) east of …
A hurricane and a tropical storm are heading west across the Pacific Ocean toward the tourist haven of Hawaii and the U.S. National Hurricane Center said parts of the islands may need to post watches later on Tuesday. Hurricane Iselle was about 1,055 miles (1,700 km) east-southeast of Hawaii, moving …
Tropical Storm Bertha, the second named storm of the 2014 Atlantic Hurricane Season, has formed east of the southern Lesser Antilles, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said on Thursday. The storm was located about 275 miles (445 km) east-southeast of Barbados, and about 385 miles (620 km) east-southeast of …
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 …
Hurricane Arthur was upgraded to a Category 2 storm with maximum sustained winds at 100 miles per hour (160 kilometers per hour), the U.S. National Hurricane Center said on Thursday evening. Arthur was fast approaching the coastline of North Carolina and expected to make landfall late Thursday or early Friday …
Tropical Storm Arthur threatened to douse some July 4 holiday plans on the U.S. East Coast as officials ordered evacuations of some low-lying coastal areas, closed beaches and tourist sites and delayed fireworks shows in anticipation of heavy rain and fierce winds. The first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Whether the characteristics of tropical cyclones have changed or will change in a warming climate — and if so, how — has been the subject of considerable investigation, often with conflicting results. Large amplitude fluctuations in the frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones greatly complicate both the detection of long-term …
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) …
