Wildfires that swept through Sequoia National Forest in California in September 2021 were so severe they killed ancient trees that had adapted to survive fires.
AP Photo/Noah Berger
The most vulnerable communities are being pushed deeper into poverty with each climate-related disaster. Part of the problem is that government aid helps the wealthiest people most.
The aftermath of the 2021 earthquake in Haiti.
EPA-EFE/ORLANDO BARRIA
Building even more power poles and transmission lines won’t avert outages when major disasters strike.
“My family has lost everything. We all live in this area, and now it’s all gone,” said Fusto Maldonado, whose home in Barataria, Louisiana, flooded during Hurricane Ida.
Brandon Bell/Getty Images
As the state copes with hurricanes and climate disasters, it is figuring out how to manage the slow-motion loss of its coastal land. But its plans could endanger the cultures that define the region.
Outages left downtown New Orleans in the dark after Hurricane Ida made landfall on Aug. 29, 2021.
Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Hurricane Ida left the entire city of New Orleans in the dark and renewed discussion of burying power lines. But there’s no way to completely protect the grid, above ground or below.
Philadelphia’s Manayunk neighborhood was flooded by the remnants of Hurricane Ida.
AP Images/Matt Rourke
Ida exploded from a weak hurricane to a powerful Category 4 storm in less than 24 hours, thanks to heat from an ocean eddy. An oceanographer explains its rapid intensification.
Hurricane Ida’s winds tore off roofs, including in New Orleans’ French Quarter.
AP Photo/Eric Gay
Some of the climate changes will be irreversible for millennia. But some can be slowed and even stopped if countries quickly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, including from burning fossil fuels.
Ocean waters are now warmer, more acidic and hold less oxygen. They’re also stressed from overfishing and pollution.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan
As the climate changes, the ocean is also changing. And that’s putting our health at risk.
Mark Poindexter puts a tarp on the damaged roof of his home in Gulf Breeze, Louisiana, on Aug. 29, 2020, in the aftermath of Hurricane Laura.
AP Photo/Gerald Herbert
Federal weather scientists are pushing to make the US more ‘weather-ready,’ which could mean prepping for fires, flooding or storms depending on where you live. The common factor: thinking ahead.
About one-third of homes in Puerto Rico were damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Maria in 2017.
(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
New Orleans has about a 40% chance of getting hit by a tropical storm in any given year. Here’s how heat, winds and the shape of the seafloor raise the hurricane damage risk.
In the Netherlands, some flood control systems are designed to adapt to future climate change.
Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management
With adaptive design, infrastructure is ready to be expanded in the future. It’s working for the Dutch.
Two people walk their bicycles along a flooded street on the waterfront of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., as Hurricane Irma passes through on Sept. 10, 2017.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson
Economic recovery and carbon neutrality are linked. Both depend on the ocean’s ability to continue to regulate climate.
In a year tied for the warmest on record globally, the U.S. was hit with costly hurricanes, wildfires, storms and drought.
AP Photo/Noah Berger and Gerald Herbert
NOAA released its list of climate and weather disasters that cost the nation more than $1 billion each. Like many climate and weather events this past year, it shattered the record.
The aftermath of Hurricane Delta. Louisiana, US, October 2020.
Tannen Maury / EPA
There were so many tropical storms in 2020, forecasters exhausted the list of names and started using Greek letters. And that’s only one reason 2020 was extreme.
A clapper rail with a fiddler crab in its bill.
Michael Gray
Birds found along the Gulf Coast have evolved to ride out hurricanes and tropical storms. But with development degrading the marshes where they live, it’s getting harder for them to bounce back.