US To Stop Tracking Costs Of Extreme Weather Caused By Climate Change
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has stated that they will no longer be tracking the cost of climate change-fueled weather disasters including flooding, heat waves, wildfires, and more. This is all a part of the Trump administration’s efforts to limit federal government resourcing regarding climate change.
The NOAA is under the US Department of Commerce. They’re responsible for providing the US with daily weather forecasts, severe storm and hurricane warnings, and general climate monitoring. The NOAA is the parent of the National Weather Service.
Within the NOAA is the National Centers for Environmental Information, which has a billion-dollar Weather and Climate Disasters database. The agency will now cease updating the database beyond 2024, and will be archiving all of its information which dates back to 1980.
The database has a very detailed record of hundreds of major events across the US and the trillions of dollars worth of damage that hurricanes, storms, droughts, and more cause.
Kim Doster, the NOAA Communications Director, released a statement saying that the changes are “in alignment with evolving priorities, statutory mandates, and staffing changes.”
Scientists are now warning that extreme weather events across the US have become more and more frequent, and the damage has worsened due to climate change. Many experts have connected recent weather events to the impacts of climate change.
“The NOAA database is the gold standard we use to evaluate the costs of extreme weather, and it’s a major loss, since it comes at a time when we need to better understand how much climate change is increasing disaster losses,” Jeff Masters, a meteorologist for Yale Climate Connections, said to AP.
“[This doesn’t] change the fact that these disasters are escalating year over year. Extreme weather events that cause a lot of damage are one of the primary ways that the public sees that climate change is happening and is affecting people,” Kristina Dahl, vice president of science at nonprofit climate organization Climate Central.
“It’s critical that we highlight those events when they’re happening. All of these changes will make Americans less safe in the face of climate change.”
President Donald Trump and his administration have been increasing their efforts to remove practically all references to climate change and its impact from the federal government’s lexicon and documents. The administration has prioritized aligning themselves with oil and gas industries, which are linked to climate change and damage.
The Trump Administration also fired hundreds of weather forecasters and federal NOAA employees as a part of their effort to downsize the federal government’s workforce.
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.
