The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will no longer track the costs of climate-change-fueled weather disasters, such as floods, heat waves, and wildfires. This is the latest example of agencies limiting federal resources on climate change and the Trump administration’s changes.
NOAA belongs to the US Department of Commerce and is tasked with daily weather forecasting, severe storm warnings and climate monitoring. He is also a parent of the National Weather Service.
The agency said the National Center for Environmental Information would not update its $1 billion weather and climate disaster database over 2024, and information dating back to 1980 will be archived.
For decades, we have tracked hundreds of major events across the country, including devastating hurricanes, hail storms, droughts and freezing that caused a total of trillions of dollars in damage.
This database uniquely extracts information from Federal Emergency Management Agency aid data, insurance organizations, state agencies, and more to estimate overall losses from personal disasters.
NOAA Communications Director Kim Doster said in a statement that the changes were “in line with evolving priorities, statutory mandate and staffing changes.”
Scientists say these weather phenomena have become increasingly more frequent, costly and serious due to climate change. Experts believe the recent debilitating heat, Hurricane Milton, wildfires and cold weather in Southern California have led to an increased intensity of climate change explosions.
Assessing the impact of weather phenomena driven by global warming is important as a premium increase, especially in flood, storm and fire-prone communities. Climate change is causing chaos in the insurance industry, and homeowners are at risk of surges.
One limitation is that the dataset estimates only the most expensive weather phenomenon in the country.
Information is generally considered unstandardized and unparalleled given institutional access to private data. Additionally, the scope of other private databases is more limited and may not be widely shared for unique reasons. However, other datasets also track estimates of deaths from these disasters.
Yale’s climate connectivity meteorologist Jeff Masters pointed to alternative sources of insurance brokers and alternatives from the international disaster database.
Still, “The NOAA database is the gold standard used to assess the costs of extreme weather,” Masters said.
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And these movements do not necessarily “change the fact that these disasters are escalating year by year.” “The extreme weather phenomenon that causes a lot of damage is one of the main ways that the public sees climate change taking place and affecting people.”
“It’s important to emphasize these events when they’re happening,” she added. “All of these changes will make Americans safe in the face of climate change.”
The move, reported by CNN on Thursday, is another effort by President Donald Trump to remove the climate change references and the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on weather from federal vocabulary and documents.
Instead, Trump prioritizes allies in the polluted coal, oil and gas industry.
The change also marks the latest hits of the overall administration of weather, oceans and fisheries.
The Trump administration fired hundreds of weather forecasters and other federal NOAA employees in the trial bureau situation in February, part of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency efforts to reduce the federal workforce. In March, agents began their second round of cuts of over 1,000 cases.
At the time, insiders said massive layoffs and changes to institutions would risk lives and have a negative impact on the US economy. Experts also say that fewer critical weather balloon launches under NOAA will worsen U.S. weather forecasts.
Further changes to the agency are expected. This could include some of what is proposed in the President’s reserve budget.
The agency’s weather services also suspended the provision of language translations for its products last month, but they resumed translations of them a few weeks later.
Data journalist Mary Catherine Wildman contributed.
