A new United Nations report makes the startling assertion that disasters have resulted in $2.5 trillion in damage within the last 13 years alone. Those losses fall principally on the private sector, warned UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who said at a New York City launch event for the report: “Governments bear the responsibility for disaster risk reduction. But the level of risk is also related to the where and the how of investment by the private sector, which is responsible for 70 to 85 percent of worldwide investment in new buildings, industry and critical infrastructure.”

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Post tags: ban ki-moon, Climate Change, disaster risk reduction, extreme weather, GAR, global warming, UN, UNISDR, United Nations

The Gulf Coast and Atlantic states should brace themselves, as forecasters predict that 2013’s hurricane season may be above average. Experts at Colorado State University predict eighteen tropical storms for this season, and half are projected to be intense enough to morph into hurricanes. This forecast is six tropical storms above the average twelve per season.

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Post tags: eco design, extreme weather, green design, hurricane increase, Hurricane Sandy, hurricane season, rising temperatures, sustainable design

Is it getting hot in here? Absolutely. Don’t let the recent snowfall fool you: 2012 was the hottest year on record for the U.S. and the future isn’t looking much cooler. Recently published research suggests that planet Earth is about to experience a heat wave of monumental proportions. According to the authors of a study in the journal Science, global temperatures are poised to surpass an 11,000-year peak, meaning that by the end of the century, the planet is set to get hotter than at any time since the last Ice Age.

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Post tags: carbon emissions, Climate Change, extreme weather, global temperatures, global warming, heat wave, Ice Age, industrial revolution

Read the rest of Halley VI: The World’s First Modular Research Station in Antarctica Can Climb Through Snow

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Post tags: aecom, Antarctic research station, antarctica, Brunt Ice Shelf, extreme weather, flexible architecture, Halley VI Antarctic research station, Hugh Broughton Architects, mobile architecture, modular architecture, prefab design, research stations, temporary structures

The cleanup cost for extreme weather events in 2012 makes this year the second most costly in US history, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced last week. There were 11 natural disasters this year that cost at least $1 billion, The Guardian reports, but damage from Hurricane Sandy and ongoing drought have been the most expensive with Sandy alone expected to hit the $100 billion mark.

“The 11 billion-dollar events of 2012 include seven severe thunderstorm outbreaks, two hurricanes, the drought and wildfires,” The Guardian reports. NOAA estimates that 349 died as a result. The organization added that the drought which has affected more than half of the lower 48 states is also the worst since the 1930′s dustbowl. And while global warming has exacerbated such extreme weather events, climatologist Jake Crouch with NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) cautions that other socioeconomic factors such as rising population also come into play.

The most expensive year on record since 1980 was 2005, the year that a series of storms, including Hurricane Katrina, slammed the Gulf Coast. While 2012 has been the second most financially expensive year for the United States, 2011 was more devastating in terms of human losses. Tornado season alone accounted for the deaths of 551 people compared to a total death toll of 349 in 2012. NOAA plans to release a more detailed report in the middle of 2013.

Via The Guardian

Images of lightning and dust storm, Shutterstock

Remember that patronizing remark Presidential candidate Mitt Romney made about climate change and rising ocean levels? It was at the 2012 Republican National Convention, where Romney probably felt confident that his climate denying jokes would fall on friendly ears. Here’s what he said: “President Obama promised to slow the rise of the oceans and to heal the planet. My promise is to help you and your family.” How the attendees of the RNC slapped their knees in laughter at that one! Fast-forward a few months and the devastation of Hurricane Sandy has silenced the glee.

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Post tags: Climate Change, election, extreme weather, Hurricane Sandy, Mitt Romney, RNC, storms

A new report from Yale and George Mason University finds that 74 percent of Americans now believe global warming is changing the weather in the United States. A September survey shows that figure has climbed 5 percent since March. When asked about six specific weather events, majorities of respondents to the survey said global warming made each event worse, with respondents most likely to connect global warming to the record temperatures experienced in the summer of 2012. Sixty-one percent say that the weather in the country has gotten worse over the past several years; that figure is up 9 percent since March.

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Post tags: Climate Change, Drought, extreme weather, flood, George Mason, George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, global warming, research, rising temperatures, survey, temperature, Yale, Yale Project on Climate Change Communication

Climate scientists have long projected that increases in global temperatures will result in higher rainfall and flooding in tropical regions. But now a MIT study has put some numbers to the prediction. Writing in Nature Geoscience in a September 16th letter titled “Sensitivity of tropical precipitation extremes to climate change,” Paul A. O’Gorman, professor of atmospheric science at MIT, said that for every one-degree Celsius increase in global surface temperature, there will be 10 percent heavier rainfall extremes in the tropics.

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Post tags: Climate Change, extreme weather, flood, flooding, global warming, MIT, Paul O'Gorman, precipitation, rainfall, rising temperatures, temperature, tropics

Floods and flooding the streets via Shutterstock

A study released on Wednesday by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) finds that 37 percent of the world’s largest companies now see extreme weather due to climate change as a physical risk to the continuity of their businesses. CDP received survey responses from 81 percent, or 405, of the Global 500 companies.

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Post tags: business disruption, business risk, Carbon Disclosure Project, Climate Change, extreme weather, Global 500, global warming

When it comes to climate change, certain groups in the United States are still resistant to the idea despite evidence from the US Military, US Forestry Commission, NASA and assorted independent studies. Now after years of sitting on the fence over the issue, the American Meteorological Society has released its official position on climate change, and they say that the Earth is indeed warming due to human activity.

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Post tags: american meteorological society, Climate Change, cold, Drought, extreme weather, global warming, heat, Hurricane, independent study, rising sea levels, united states, us climate change, weather

A group of scientists from the University of Washington in Seattle and New Mexico State University believe they have found the key in making plants robust enough to endure extreme drought conditions, like the ones currently sweeping the US. The team believe that by utilizing microbiome, the mixture of fungi, bacteria and viruses that live in the root systems of every plant, they can engineer plants to survive extreme heat.

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Post tags: biotech, Climate Change, extreme weather, fungus, new mexico state university, superplants, university of washington, us droughts

James E. Hansen, head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, declared Aug. 3 that a new study by him and colleagues Makiko Sato and Reto Ruedy proves global warming is causing the extreme weather dominating the news in recent years. The study was published today online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Hansen asserts in an op-ed for The Washington Post, that “for the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change.”

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Post tags: alternative energy, bee population, Biodiversity, canopy loss, carbon emissions, Climate Change, deforestation, deforestation carbon, earth day, Earth Day 2012, energy issues, environmental destruction, extreme weather, food security, food wastage, fossil fuels, fsc certified wood, fuel efficiency, global warming, great pacific garbage patch, oceanic dead zones, overpopulation, Pollution, recycling, renewable energy, rising sea levels, tree planting, water pollution, water scarcity

The unseasonably warm winter this past year has caused over 10,000 migrating birds to die from avian cholera in Northern California and Southern Oregon. The birds would typically rest and feed at wetland areas in the Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuge Complex, but the water supply to the area was reduced by the US Bureau of Reclamation due to light snowfall and threats of a water shortage. As birds were forced to crowd into a diminished space due to the lack of water, the avian cholera spread through the population quickly, resulting in death. Snow geese, northern pintail ducks, American wigeon ducks and white-fronted geese were the hardest hit, and the refuge’s manager, Ron Cole, believes 20,000 birds could be dead by the end of the year.

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Post tags: American Bird Conservancy, Avian Cholera, Bureau of Reclamation, extreme weather, global warming, Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuge, Low Snow Caps, US Drought, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Warm Winter, wetlands loss

We know, we know: Discussing the weather can be, well, a bit boring. But with so many record-breaking temperatures recorded around the country this winter and spring, the unseasonably warm weather deserves to be a topic of conversation. And it wasn’t just March — the first three months of 2012 were 6 degrees higher than average in the lower 48 states, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. As nice as it is to dust off that tank top in February, the warming trend is a serious cause for concern.

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Post tags: Climate Change, climatology, extreme weather, global warming, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, natural disasters, NOAA, Record-breaking heat, weather

An average global temperature of 57.9 degrees Fahrenheit marked 2011 as the 11th hottest year on record. At a full 0.9 degrees warmer than the 20th century average, this past year was hotter than every year in the last century except for 1998. The sentiment among climate scientists is that higher temperatures are largely sustained by increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, especially carbon dioxide emissions from human activity. This means that if global emissions aren’t curbed and development continues without consideration for climate, the future will be full of freaky storms, extreme weather, and even more record-breaking weather anomalies.

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Post tags: customizable home, eco design, extreme weather, Flatpak, green design, high winds, insulation, Prefab, prefab construction, seismic safe, sustainable design, Sustainable Materials, Week'nder, wisconsin

It’s snowing in New York City right now! The whole Atlantic seaboard is expecting to get hit with a major snow storm from midday Saturday until Sunday morning, which could drop up to 8 inches of snow in some regions. This is the first time that it has snowed more than an inch in New York City in October since the Civil War. Anyone who is still denying climate change needs to simply pry open their eyes.

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Post tags: Climate Change, extreme weather, global warming, major snow storm, snow in NYC, snow in october, snow on halloween, snowstorm

Unless you’ve been living in an ice chest for the past couple of weeks, you’ve probably noticed that it’s been a tad hot. Ok, really hot. Ok, really, REALLY hot. Like record-breaking hot. Just four days ago, when the heat indexed reached 110F in New York City, 188 cities across the United States broke high temperature records, and 138 more cities tied them. And if you’re thinking that it’s just your average heat wave, you’re wrong. The fact is that the weather isn’t what it used to be. The extreme highs, just like the extreme snow fall, rain, drought, flooding, and tornadoes, are because of climate change.

Read the rest of Hot is the New Normal: Why High Temperatures Are Evidence of Climate Change

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Post tags: arizona haboobs, Climate Change, Drought, drought and climate change, dust storms and climate change, extreme temperatures, extreme weather, flooding, global warming, haboobs, heat wave, heat waves and climate change, heidi cullen, hot weather, meteorologist stu ostro, NOAA, record breaking temperatures, record highs, weather.com