The Trump administration's steep staff cuts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) triggered shutdowns of several climate-related programs Thursday.

Perhaps most notably, the NOAA announced it would be shuttering the "billion-dollar weather and climate disasters" database for vague reasons. Since 1980, the database made it possible to track the growing costs of the nation's most devastating weather events, critically pooling various sources of private data that have long been less accessible to the public.

In that time, 403 weather and climate disasters in the US triggered more than $2.945 trillion in costs, and NOAA notes that's a conservative estimate. Considering that CNN noted the average number of disasters in the past five years jumped from nine annually to 24, shutting down the database could leave communities in the dark on costs of emerging threats. All the NOAA can likely say is to continue looking at the historic data to keep up with trends.

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The Trump administration's steep staff cuts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) triggered shutdowns of several climate-related programs Thursday.

Perhaps most notably, the NOAA announced it would be shuttering the "billion-dollar weather and climate disasters" database for vague reasons. Since 1980, the database made it possible to track the growing costs of the nation's most devastating weather events, critically pooling various sources of private data that have long been less accessible to the public.

In that time, 403 weather and climate disasters in the US triggered more than $2.945 trillion in costs, and NOAA notes that's a conservative estimate. Considering that CNN noted the average number of disasters in the past five years jumped from nine annually to 24, shutting down the database could leave communities in the dark on costs of emerging threats. All the NOAA can likely say is to continue looking at the historic data to keep up with trends.

Read full article

Comments

The Trump administration's steep staff cuts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) triggered shutdowns of several climate-related programs Thursday.

Perhaps most notably, the NOAA announced it would be shuttering the "billion-dollar weather and climate disasters" database for vague reasons. Since 1980, the database made it possible to track the growing costs of the nation's most devastating weather events, critically pooling various sources of private data that have long been less accessible to the public.

In that time, 403 weather and climate disasters in the US triggered more than $2.945 trillion in costs, and NOAA notes that's a conservative estimate. Considering that CNN noted the average number of disasters in the past five years jumped from nine annually to 24, shutting down the database could leave communities in the dark on costs of emerging threats. All the NOAA can likely say is to continue looking at the historic data to keep up with trends.

Read full article

Comments