The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is retiring its public database that tracks the cost of losses from climate change-fueled weather disasters—including floods, heat waves, and wildfires—in the latest example of the Trump administration limiting federal government resources on climate change. NOAA falls under the US Department of Commerce and is tasked with daily weather forecasts, severe storm warnings, and climate monitoring. It's also parent to the National Weather Service. The agency said its National Centers for Environmental Information would no longer update the billion-dollar "Weather and Climate Disasters" database beyond 2024, and that its data—going as far back as 1980—would be archived, per the AP.
For decades, the database has tracked hundreds of major events across the country, including destructive hurricanes, hailstorms, droughts, and freezes, that have totaled trillions of dollars in damage. The database uniquely pulls information from FEMA's assistance data, insurance organizations, state agencies, and more to estimate overall losses from individual disasters. NOAA communications chief Kim Doster said in a statement that the change was "in alignment with evolving priorities, statutory mandates, and staffing changes."
Scientists say these weather events are becoming increasingly more frequent, costly, and severe with climate change. Experts have attributed the growing intensity of recent debilitating heat, Hurricane Milton, the Southern California wildfires, and blasts of cold to climate change. Assessing the impact of weather events fueled by the planet's warming is key as insurance premiums hike, particularly in communities more prone to flooding, storms, and fires. Climate change has wrought havoc on the insurance industry, and homeowners are at risk of skyrocketing rates.
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Other private databases would be more limited in scope and likely not shared in as widespread a way for proprietary reasons. Other datasets, however, also track death estimates from these disasters. The move, reported Thursday by CNN, is yet another of President Trump's efforts to remove references to climate change and the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on the weather from the federal government's lexicon and documents. Trump has instead prioritized allies in the coal, oil, and gas industries, which studies say are linked or traced to climate damage.
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