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Atmospheric River Forecasts Are Improving Thanks to Storm-Hunting Planes

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Friday, December 13, 2024

December 13, 20244 min readStorm-Hunting Planes Are Taking on Atmospheric Rivers to Improve ForecastsBetter forecasting would help communities prepare for the extreme weather from atmospheric rivers that causes an average of $1 billion in damages a year on the West CoastBy Chelsea Harvey & E&E NewsA resident looks over a flooded road on November 22, 2024 in Forestville, California. A powerful atmospheric river is bringing heavy rains and wind to the San Francisco Bay Area for the third straight day. Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesCLIMATEWIRE | New England was still recovering Friday from a bout of extreme weather that dumped rainfall across the region and left tens of thousands of residents without power.The midweek storm, fueled by a weather system known as an atmospheric river, produced wind gusts up to 60 miles per hour and likely gave Providence, Rhode Island, its wettest winter day on record — with as much as 5 inches of rain, according to preliminary reports.Atmospheric rivers aren’t new to meteorologists, but they are notoriously difficult to predict.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Like their earthbound counterparts, atmospheric rivers move massive amounts of water. They can carry through the air a volume of water vapor that’s equivalent to more than 10 times the water flow at the mouth of the Mississippi River.The extreme moisture goes hand-in-hand with heavy cloud cover, which is a big reason it’s hard for satellites to accurately observe them — and for meteorologists to develop forecasts.But now scientists say they’re making strides in predicting their behavior.Researchers with the National Weather Service and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego have teamed up on a project known as the Atmospheric River Reconnaissance Program, or AR Recon.The program skirts the satellite issue by collecting direct measurements from buoys and in the ocean and from special instruments dropped by planes including NOAA’s weather-monitoring G-IV jets and the Air Force Reserve’s famous “Hurricane Hunters.”The on-site data already have led to marked improvements in atmospheric river forecasts. Models using these measurements have shown as much as a 12 percent improvement for forecasts in Central California and a 6 percent improvement for the continental United States as a whole.These improvements are “moving the needle for the first time ever in the last couple of decades,” said Vijay Tallapragada, a senior scientist at NOAA’s Environmental Modeling Center.Tallapragada is a co-principal investigator with the AR Recon program alongside Marty Ralph, director of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at Scripps.The advances in forecasts are a big deal — especially for the West Coast, where research suggests atmospheric rivers cause an average of $1 billion in damages each year.Accurate information on the timing and location of an atmospheric river’s landfall — and the amount of moisture it’s carrying — also helps western water managers strategically release supplies from their water reservoirs in advance, reducing the risk of damaging floods.Plans for expansionThe AR Recon program kicked off in 2016 with three aircraft missions. These flights are carefully plotted by scientists in real time each winter as weather systems develop, with aircraft directed to fly in patterns specially designed for atmospheric river data collection.The program has continued to expand in the years since, now launching dozens of flights each winter. This year will mark its most ambitious season yet.From early January through early March, two Air Force Reserve aircraft will be stationed in California and fully assigned to AR Recon, while a NOAA jet will be stationed in Hawaii. And two more aircraft will be stationed in Japan for the first time from late January through mid-February to collect new observations in the western Pacific.Ships and planes also will deploy around 80 drifting buoys across the ocean this season. And scientists will release weather balloons from stations in Washington and California for additional measurements.In future seasons, AR Recon scientists plan to expand their work and deploy flights from the Gulf of Mexico and the East Coast.And they’re starting a new partnership with U.S. universities this year too — aimed at expanding weather balloon observations across the country. The pilot will kick off this winter with five university partners, with the goal of expanding to 25 universities by February 2026.The program also will rope in European partners for a one-month experiment in early 2026, flying European aircraft alongside U.S. aircraft for improved data collection over the Atlantic.At the moment, atmospheric river forecasts are most accurate about three to five days out, Tallapragada noted. The program’s goal is to improve those forecasts to the seven-to-10 day range, a time period that will give emergency officials and water managers more time to plan for heavy precipitation events and try to mitigate flood risks.“I think it is possible with concerted efforts across multiple agencies and the assets that we have,” Tallapragada said. “The plan is to make significant advancements in our prediction technologies and bring the big changes in the stagnant precipitation forecast skill.”The threat of atmospheric rivers recently has drawn the attention of lawmakers. Last year, Congress passed the Atmospheric Rivers Reconnaissance, Observation and Warning Act through the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2024, requiring winter season monitoring of atmospheric river systems off the West Coast.And U.S. Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) introduced a new bill in November known as the Improving Atmospheric River Forecasts Act, which would require NOAA to establish a new observation and forecasting program within the National Weather Service.“For the past several years, California communities have witnessed firsthand the ongoing threat of destructive flooding caused by intense and frequent atmospheric river storms,” Padilla said in a statement. “California scientists have led the way in improving our understanding of these storms, and this bipartisan bill will strengthen forecasts to both reduce flood risks and bolster our water supply and drought resilience.”Reprinted from E&E News with permission from POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2024. E&E News provides essential news for energy and environment professionals.

Better forecasting would help communities prepare for the extreme weather from atmospheric rivers that causes an average of $1 billion in damages a year on the West Coast

December 13, 2024

4 min read

Storm-Hunting Planes Are Taking on Atmospheric Rivers to Improve Forecasts

Better forecasting would help communities prepare for the extreme weather from atmospheric rivers that causes an average of $1 billion in damages a year on the West Coast

By Chelsea Harvey & E&E News

A resident with purple umbrella looks over a flooded road

A resident looks over a flooded road on November 22, 2024 in Forestville, California. A powerful atmospheric river is bringing heavy rains and wind to the San Francisco Bay Area for the third straight day.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

CLIMATEWIRE | New England was still recovering Friday from a bout of extreme weather that dumped rainfall across the region and left tens of thousands of residents without power.

The midweek storm, fueled by a weather system known as an atmospheric river, produced wind gusts up to 60 miles per hour and likely gave Providence, Rhode Island, its wettest winter day on record — with as much as 5 inches of rain, according to preliminary reports.

Atmospheric rivers aren’t new to meteorologists, but they are notoriously difficult to predict.

On supporting science journalism

If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.

Like their earthbound counterparts, atmospheric rivers move massive amounts of water. They can carry through the air a volume of water vapor that’s equivalent to more than 10 times the water flow at the mouth of the Mississippi River.

The extreme moisture goes hand-in-hand with heavy cloud cover, which is a big reason it’s hard for satellites to accurately observe them — and for meteorologists to develop forecasts.

But now scientists say they’re making strides in predicting their behavior.

Researchers with the National Weather Service and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego have teamed up on a project known as the Atmospheric River Reconnaissance Program, or AR Recon.

The program skirts the satellite issue by collecting direct measurements from buoys and in the ocean and from special instruments dropped by planes including NOAA’s weather-monitoring G-IV jets and the Air Force Reserve’s famous “Hurricane Hunters.”

The on-site data already have led to marked improvements in atmospheric river forecasts. Models using these measurements have shown as much as a 12 percent improvement for forecasts in Central California and a 6 percent improvement for the continental United States as a whole.

These improvements are “moving the needle for the first time ever in the last couple of decades,” said Vijay Tallapragada, a senior scientist at NOAA’s Environmental Modeling Center.

Tallapragada is a co-principal investigator with the AR Recon program alongside Marty Ralph, director of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at Scripps.

The advances in forecasts are a big deal — especially for the West Coast, where research suggests atmospheric rivers cause an average of $1 billion in damages each year.

Accurate information on the timing and location of an atmospheric river’s landfall — and the amount of moisture it’s carrying — also helps western water managers strategically release supplies from their water reservoirs in advance, reducing the risk of damaging floods.

Plans for expansion

The AR Recon program kicked off in 2016 with three aircraft missions. These flights are carefully plotted by scientists in real time each winter as weather systems develop, with aircraft directed to fly in patterns specially designed for atmospheric river data collection.

The program has continued to expand in the years since, now launching dozens of flights each winter. This year will mark its most ambitious season yet.

From early January through early March, two Air Force Reserve aircraft will be stationed in California and fully assigned to AR Recon, while a NOAA jet will be stationed in Hawaii. And two more aircraft will be stationed in Japan for the first time from late January through mid-February to collect new observations in the western Pacific.

Ships and planes also will deploy around 80 drifting buoys across the ocean this season. And scientists will release weather balloons from stations in Washington and California for additional measurements.

In future seasons, AR Recon scientists plan to expand their work and deploy flights from the Gulf of Mexico and the East Coast.

And they’re starting a new partnership with U.S. universities this year too — aimed at expanding weather balloon observations across the country. The pilot will kick off this winter with five university partners, with the goal of expanding to 25 universities by February 2026.

The program also will rope in European partners for a one-month experiment in early 2026, flying European aircraft alongside U.S. aircraft for improved data collection over the Atlantic.

At the moment, atmospheric river forecasts are most accurate about three to five days out, Tallapragada noted. The program’s goal is to improve those forecasts to the seven-to-10 day range, a time period that will give emergency officials and water managers more time to plan for heavy precipitation events and try to mitigate flood risks.

“I think it is possible with concerted efforts across multiple agencies and the assets that we have,” Tallapragada said. “The plan is to make significant advancements in our prediction technologies and bring the big changes in the stagnant precipitation forecast skill.”

The threat of atmospheric rivers recently has drawn the attention of lawmakers. Last year, Congress passed the Atmospheric Rivers Reconnaissance, Observation and Warning Act through the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2024, requiring winter season monitoring of atmospheric river systems off the West Coast.

And U.S. Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) introduced a new bill in November known as the Improving Atmospheric River Forecasts Act, which would require NOAA to establish a new observation and forecasting program within the National Weather Service.

“For the past several years, California communities have witnessed firsthand the ongoing threat of destructive flooding caused by intense and frequent atmospheric river storms,” Padilla said in a statement. “California scientists have led the way in improving our understanding of these storms, and this bipartisan bill will strengthen forecasts to both reduce flood risks and bolster our water supply and drought resilience.”

Reprinted from E&E News with permission from POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2024. E&E News provides essential news for energy and environment professionals.

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Related News

Revealed: ‘Corporate capture’ of UN aviation body by industry

Exclusive: Industry delegates outnumbered climate experts by 14 to one at recent ICAO meeting, thinktank saysThe UN aviation organisation has been captured by the industry, a report has concluded, leading to the urgent action required to tackle the sector’s high carbon emissions being blocked.Industry delegates outnumbered climate experts by 14 to one at the recent “environmental protection” meeting of the UN International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the report found. The ICAO is the forum where nations agree the rules governing international aviation. Continue reading...

The UN aviation organisation has been captured by the industry, a report has concluded, leading to the urgent action required to tackle the sector’s high carbon emissions being blocked.Industry delegates outnumbered climate experts by 14 to one at the recent “environmental protection” meeting of the UN International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the report found. The ICAO is the forum where nations agree the rules governing international aviation.The analysis, by the thinktank InfluenceMap, concluded that ICAO policies to tackle the climate crisis were weak and reflected the self-interest of powerful members of the aviation industry, such as the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which represents 350 airlines. ICAO’s assembly, its highest-level summit, held every three years, starts on Tuesday.The report also criticises a lack of transparency compared with other UN organisations, with the meetings where climate policies are developed being closed to the media and requiring delegates to sign non-disclosure agreements. This gives an advantage to groups opposing serious climate action that could otherwise be held publicly accountable, the analysts said.The result of this corporate capture, the report says, is that climate policy for international aviation is judged “critically insufficient” by the independent Climate Action Tracker analysts, aligned with over 4C of global heating.“Our report lays out a clear case of corporate capture,” said Lucca Ewbank, the transport manager at InfluenceMap. “Industry lobbyists continue to dominate decision-making processes at ICAO, relying on closed-door meetings to cement their influence. In order for the aviation sector to meet the existential challenge of climate change, ICAO needs a hard course correction.”Flying causes more climate-heating pollution than any other form of transport per mile and is dominated by rich passengers, with 1% of the world’s population responsible for 50% of aviation emissions. Despite the urgent need for cuts in carbon pollution, ICAO forecasts a doubling of passenger numbers by 2042 and Climate Action Tracker predicts that without strong action, aviation’s carbon dioxide emissions could double or even triple by 2050.The industry argues that more efficient aircraft, sustainable fuels and ICAO’s primary carbon policy, an offsetting scheme, can control carbon emissions.But independent experts say the feasible scale of such measures is extremely unlikely to compensate for such huge growth in air traffic. For example, the “unambitious and problematic” offsetting scheme, called Corsia, has yet to require any airline to use a carbon credit, and fuel-efficiency improvements are stalling. The experts say aviation growth must be curbed if climate targets are to be met.A plane comes in to land over houses at Heathrow in London. Independent experts say aviation growth must be curbed if climate targets are to be met. Photograph: Steve Parsons/PAEwbank said: “Airlines and industry associations are ignoring the warning lights and prioritising industry interests over essential emissions cuts, with only a weak offsetting policy and non-binding targets to show for years of deliberation.”A spokesperson for ICAO said it was committed to increasing transparency as part of a “cultural transformation” launched in 2022. “The ICAO assembly next week will be reviewing progress and determining the next steps. The resolutions passed by the assembly will also support the implementation of ICAO’s long-term strategic plan for 2050, which envisions zero fatalities and net zero carbon emissions. The review of the outcomes and the resulting decisions by the ICAO council and assembly are fully open and broadcast to all.”The spokesperson said developing robust technical standards required detailed input from industry experts and may involve commercially sensitive information that is subject to confidentiality rules. “ICAO strongly urges advocacy by all stakeholders, particularly at a time when air transport is facing its most significant opportunities and challenges,” he said.The InfluenceMap report found that at ICAO’s environmental negotiations in February, 72 delegates (31% of the total) represented industry trade associations, including employees of the fossil fuel companies ExxonMobil and Chevron and the aircraft makers Airbus and Boeing. In contrast, just five delegates (2%) represented green groups.Most of the rest of the delegates (57%) represented countries, although eight of these were also employees of aviation or fossil fuel companies. One of the trade associations, representing aircraft manufacturers, had 41 delegates, more than any national delegation.skip past newsletter promotionThe planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essentialPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionThe dominance of industry interests has grown since the last major environmental meeting in 2022, at which aviation industry delegates outnumbered those from green groups by 10 to one.ICAO and the international aviation industry have set themselves a target of net zero emissions by 2050. But the International Energy Agency found in January that aviation was “not on track” to meet this goal.The InfluenceMap report notes that industry support for the 2050 target appears to be weakening, with the IATA head, Willie Walsh, recently calling for it to be “re-evaluated”, citing concern among airlines about rising costs. The industry failed to meet all but one of 50 of its own climate targets in the past two decades, a 2022 report found. IATA did not respond to requests for comment.Aviation fuel is generally untaxed and new levies to fund climate action are being discussed at high levels. However, in April ICAO called on member states to lobby the UN climate organisation and other bodies to oppose such proposals.ICAO has been widely criticised over its climate policies, even by industry insiders. A group of aviation professionals said in May that the industry was “failing dramatically” in its efforts to tackle its role in the climate crisis.ICAO’s offsetting scheme is also widely criticised. Marte van der Graaf, of the thinktank and campaign group Transport & Environment, said: “Corsia offsets don’t actually reduce emissions. They are often based on dubious ‘avoided deforestation’ schemes based on hypothetical predictions little better than astrology.” IATA warned on Wednesday that there was likely to be a “terrifying” shortfall of approved offsets after the voluntary phase of Corsia ends in 2027.Ewbank said ICAO needed to “prioritise public interests, science-based policies and open negotiations, so that independent experts and civil society can come together with industry in good faith, and so that industry can begin to take real responsibility for the climate impact of the aviation sector”.

Climate
CO2
Energy

Wildfire smoke could soon kill 71,000 Americans every year

The haze may already kill 40,000 people in the U.S. each year — the same number who die in traffic crashes. Climate change will only make matters worse.

You may live many miles away from a wildfire, but it could still kill you. That’s because all that smoke wafting in from afar poses a mortal risk. The threat is so great, in fact, that any official tally of people killed in a fire most likely is wildly low, given that it counts obvious victims, not those who later died after inhaling its far-flung haze. Los Angeles’ catastrophic blazes in January, for instance, killed 30 people according to authorities, but more like 440 according to scientists, who determined excess deaths at the time were likely due to smoke. As climate change makes such conflagrations ever more catastrophic, that mortality is only going to escalate. A new study in the journal Nature estimates that wildfire smoke already kills 40,000 Americans each year — the same number who die in traffic crashes — and that could rise to more than 71,000 annually by 2050 if emissions remain high. The economic damages in the United States may soar to over $600 billion each year by then, more than all other estimated climate impacts combined. And the problem is by no means isolated to North America: A separate paper also publishing today estimates that 1.4 million people worldwide could die prematurely each year from smoke by the end of this century — six times higher than current rates.  Together, the studies add to a growing body of evidence that wildfires are killing an extraordinary number of people — and are bound to claim ever more if humanity doesn’t rapidly slow climate change and better protect itself from pollution. “The numbers are really striking, but those don’t need to be inevitable,” said Minghao Qiu, an environmental scientist at Stony Brook University and lead author of the first paper. “There are a lot of things we could do to reduce this number.” The core of the problem is desiccation: As the planet warms, the atmosphere gets thirstier, which means it sucks more moisture out of vegetation, turning it to tinder. Scientists are also finding more weather whiplash, in which stretches of extra wet conditions encourage the growth of plants, followed by stretches of extra-dry conditions that parch all that biomass. Droughts, too, are getting worse, making landscapes exceptionally flammable.  Tragically enough, wildfires have grown so intense and deadly in recent years that scientists have been getting bountiful data to make these connections between the haze and cascading health problems downwind. “We totally underestimate the total burden when we don’t consider the smoke that is generated, that can be transported miles and miles away,” said Tarik Benmarhnia, a climate epidemiologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who studies the impacts of smoke but wasn’t involved in either of the new papers. “That is by far the biggest factor for mortality and other health issues associated with this type of pollution.” Bigger, more intense infernos are belching smoke not just for days or weeks, but sometimes months at a time. This year’s blazes in Canada, for instance, have consistently blanketed parts of the U.S. in unhealthy air quality. That adds to the haze produced by domestic fires, especially in the West, making for dangerous conditions across the country. Indeed, Qiu’s modeling estimates that annual wildfire emissions from the western U.S. could increase by up to 482 percent by 2055, compared to the average between 2011 and 2020. In the global study published today, researchers estimate that worldwide, this deadly pollution could grow by nearly 25 percent by the end of the century. But it won’t be evenly distributed: Africa could see 11 times more fire-related deaths by that time, compared to Europe and the U.S. seeing one to two times as many. “Africa has the world’s largest burned area due to extensive savannas, forests, and grasslands, combined with long dry seasons,” said Bo Zheng, an associate professor at Tsinghua University in China and coauthor of the paper, in an email to Grist. “This widespread burning drives disproportionate smoke exposure and health impacts.” The major concern with wildfire smoke is PM 2.5, or particulate matter smaller than 2.5 millionths of a meter, which burrows deep into the lungs and crosses into the bloodstream. More and more research is showing this irritant is far more toxic than that from other sources, like industries and traffic. “We have mountains of evidence that inhaling these particles is really bad for a broad range of health outcomes,” said Marshall Burke, an environmental economist at Stanford University, who coauthored the paper with Qiu. “They’re small enough to sort of spread throughout your body and cause negative health impacts — respiratory impacts, cardiovascular impacts. Most, I would say, bodily systems now show responses to air pollution and small particle exposure.” Making matters worse, wildfires aren’t just turning plants into particulates. Those Canadian conflagrations have been burning through mining regions, where soils are tainted with toxicants like arsenic and lead, potentially mobilizing those nasties into the atmosphere. And whenever fires burn through the built environment, they’re chewing through the many hazardous materials in buildings and vehicles. “It burns up cars, it burns up bicycles, it burns up anything that’s in your garage,” Burke said. “That’s incinerated, aerosolized, and then we’re literally breathing cars and bicycles when we are exposed to that smoke.” All told, even brief exposures to wildfire smoke can be devastating, exacerbating respiratory conditions like asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, as well as cardiovascular diseases, since PM 2.5 is entering the bloodstream. Those issues can continue for years after exposure, and other toxins like carcinogens in the haze can cause still more problems that might last a lifetime.  Qiu and Burke’s new modeling estimates that cumulative deaths due to wildfire smoke in the U.S. could reach 1.9 million between 2026 and 2055. That’s a tragic loss of life, but it also comes at a major economic cost of lost productivity. And that doesn’t even include the impacts that are non-lethal, like the degradation of mental health and people missing school and work because of poor air quality. There are ways to blunt this crisis, at least. Reducing carbon emissions will help slow the worsening of wildfires. Doing more controlled burns clears built-up fuel, meaning the landscape might still ignite, but less catastrophically. And governments can help their people get air purifiers to run during smoky days. “If climate change continues apace, but we reduce the amount of fuel loading in our forests and are better able to protect ourselves, then our projections are going to be overestimates of the damages, and that will be a good thing,” Burke said. “These damages are not inevitable.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Wildfire smoke could soon kill 71,000 Americans every year on Sep 18, 2025.

Climate
Crisis
Government

The Indiana town suffering under the shadow of a BP refinery: ‘They’ve had way too many accidents’

Whiting residents worried after facility, which has had multiple problems, shut down temporarily after rainIt was the biggest news story around the midwest as the Labor Day weekend approached earlier this month: the unexpected surging price of fuel at the gas station.But for residents of Whiting, Indiana, petroleum has been presenting an altogether bigger problem. Continue reading...

It was the biggest news story around the midwest as the Labor Day weekend approached earlier this month: the unexpected surging price of fuel at the gas station.But for residents of Whiting, Indiana, petroleum has been presenting an altogether bigger problem.A severe thunderstorm moved through north-west Indiana on 19 August, dropping 6in of rain on Whiting, a largely industrial town, flooding streets and temporarily closing schools.The flooding also shut down the BP Whiting Refinery, the largest fuel refinery in the midwest, with a capacity to process around 400,000 barrels of crude oil a day.Residents living around the facility quickly reported oil and gas fumes in their flooded basements, with some reporting feeling dizzy and nauseous. The local conditions, BP admitted, were “severe” with wailing sirens at the facility adding to the climate of fear for residents.“They had a real problem; they had to shut down. Who knows what happened,” says Carolyn Marsh, the administrator of the BP & Whiting Watch Facebook page, who lives within walking distance of the refinery.“The sludge they had to clean out of their system had to go through the water filtration plant [situated on the shore of Lake Michigan]. Who knows what they poured into Lake Michigan.”With the Trump administration dismantling emissions and other regulations for large polluting corporations in July, people living in close proximity to petroleum processing facilities are facing ever greater threats as climate crisis – fueled by burning the same fossil fuels produced by BP and others – promises to deliver increasingly severe storms and weather events.In a summer of relentless rain across parts of the midwest, scientists say heavy, short-lived storm events that can damage key infrastructure are likely to become a more common feature of life in a part of US thought to be relatively safe from the effects of climate crisis.In July, the Chicagoland region that encompasses Whiting recorded a ‘one-in-500-year’ flooding event that saw 5in of rain fall in 90 minutes in one area.According to the World Weather Attribution, climate crisis made storms and weather events that struck the midwest and south last April, killing dozens of people, 9% more intense.A reconnaissance inspection of the BP Whiting refinery conducted by the Indiana department of environmental management on 21 August found that “flood waters left significant oil on the ground”.The following day, the state of Indiana issued BP with a noncompliance notification report having found a “visible hydrocarbon sheen was observed … along 50 feet of [Lake Michigan] shoreline for a period of approximately 3 hours”. A lightning strike from the same storm also temporarily stopped the refinery’s dissolved nitrification floatation process, which reduced its ability to treat wastewater.A BP representative told the Guardian: “The Whiting refinery has detailed plans in place to manage severe weather conditions. We will incorporate learnings from the August rain event as we continue to improve the resiliency of our refinery operations during severe weather.”BP declined to respond to a query asking if the company plans to enact infrastructural upgrades to better protect against future extreme weather events such as floods and storms.Aside from the 19 August flooding causing oil to run into public waterways, BP was also forced to flare large amounts of fuel at the Whiting facility, resulting in huge volumes of damaging CO2, methane and other dangerous gases being released into the atmosphere.Like many of its kind, the Whiting facility has been plagued by issues.In 2008, BP initiated a $4.2bn project at the Whiting refinery to upgrade its infrastructure to process cheaper heavy crude from the Canadian oil sands.But in 2019, the Sierra Club successfully sued BP for violating deadly particle air pollution limits at the Whiting refinery that saw the fossil fuel company pay out $2.75m. BP’s annual revenue stands at $194.63bn.In August 2022, a fire caused the facility to shut down for a week and a half, resulting in a spike in fuel prices for millions of gas consumers around the region. In February 2024, the refinery was shut down again, due to a power outage, while last December, an underground gas pipeline leak was reported which required emergency crews at the scene and prompted a furious response from residents.“We woke up the day after Christmas and it smelled terrible. People were getting sick. There was no word from BP for days,” says Lisa Vallee of Just Transition Northwest Indiana, an environmental nonprofit, who lives in Whiting.“People were really, really upset. We went to our city council, and they said: ‘BP is not telling us anything either.’”Over the course of decades, BP has been responsible for some of the worst environmental catastrophes on the planet. In 2010, BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig spill caused the deaths of 11 people and the release of 3.2m to 4.9m barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico across an area the size of Florida over five months. It was the largest environmental disaster in US history and saw BP pay $4bn in criminal charges and a $20.8bn settlement fee. However, the latter generated a $15bn tax deduction for the oil giant.Oil refineries are particularly susceptible to storms and flooding, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, whose 2015 report also noted that “many of the companies that operate refineries are not disclosing these risks adequately to shareholders and local communities”.And yet, polling suggests climate change is not a concern for Republican voters, with just 12% of those surveyed in one poll last year saying climate crisis should be a top priority for the president and Congress.But fossil fuel conglomerates are not acting to protect communities around their facilities, say environmentalists.“We just cannot trust them,” says Vallee, whose basement flooded for the first time during the 19 August storm. “It’s a really old facility, and that is very frightening.”The Sierra Club settlement saw $500,000 given to the Student Conservation Program non-profit to plant trees around the refinery and in other parts of the community. However, one of the non-profit’s corporate partners is BP.Meanwhile, the refinery continues to loom large for residents of Whiting.“We’re concerned that it’s going to blow up,” says Marsh. “They’ve had way too many accidents over the last few years.

Climate
Conservation
Crisis

How climate change is fueling your sugar addiction

Rising temperatures are feeding America's sweet tooth — and creating a new public health challenge in the process.

In the thick of summer, little else can seem more appealing than the promised respite of an ice cream cone or a chilled can of soda. Turns out that as climate change warms up the planet, that sugary siren song is getting louder: A new study published last week in the journal Nature Climate Change found that as temperatures have gotten hotter, Americans have been buying more artificially sweetened treats.  By examining a national sample of U.S. household consumer purchases between 2004 and 2019, and cross-comparing that with localized weather data, analyzing temperatures, precipitation, humidity, and wind speed, the researchers found that added sugar consumption for Americans has been rising in lockstep with average temperatures. They also used climate projections to predict how these trends could align with future climatic changes, finding that if emissions continue unchecked, excess sugar consumption would soar by the end of the century. It’s the latest piece of evidence in a mountain of research showing how climate change is reshaping what we eat and how we eat it.  “Rising temperatures do make a difference on what you eat and drink,” said Pan He, study author and a senior lecturer in environmental social sciences and sustainability at Cardiff University. “We don’t take much of a second thought on what we eat and drink and how that can be responding to climate change, but in fact, this research shows it would.”  For every 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit of warming, added sugar consumption in U.S. households increased by around 0.7 grams per person per day between 2004 and 2019, the scientists found, with a notable escalation as temperatures hit between 68 to 86 degrees Fahrenheit. That tallies up to more than 100 million pounds of added sugar consumed in a year, when compared to how much of the stuff people ingested 15 years earlier. The spikes in sugar intake were concentrated when temperatures moved between 54 and 86 degrees Fahrenheit, with the highest surges in the form of sugar-sweetened drinks like soda and juice, while frozen desserts followed suit. (Pastries and other baked goods saw notable dips in consumer purchasing trends in the studied periods.) The international research team also predict sugar consumption nationwide could increase by nearly 3 grams a day by 2095 in a future of high greenhouse gas emissions.  This dynamic of rising temperatures feeding our cravings for sweet treats is hardly unexpected. After all, it’s well known that warmer weather makes bodies lose more water, causing people to crave sources of hydration, and that people generally tend to love sweetened things, especially in liquid form. The study charts a new course by connecting two distinct bodies of research by examining exactly what the human body craves when temperatures hike and people need relief.  Read Next What does climate change mean for agriculture? Less food and more emissions. Frida Garza Inequities abound in the data, too. The amount of added sugar consumed during hotter spells is proportionally much higher for low-income American families when compared to the wealthiest households — even up to five times the difference. The health implications of this could be enormous, according to He, including increased risk of diabetes, poor cardiovascular health, obesity, and several cancers, among other complications.  “The importance is why this is so,” added He. She explained that while the researchers didn’t examine the motivating factors behind this in their research, they did find that different working environments associated with social class could be contributing to the economic divide. Lower-income households tend to have occupations where people are working outdoors, exposing them more directly to heat spells.  Other experts aren’t sold on the significance of the new paper. Andrew Odegaard, associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at UC Irvine, who was not involved with the research, called the findings and language used by the authors “overstated” and “limited, with extremely strong assumptions.” According to Odegaard, the findings, while of “statistical significance,” are “likely immaterial from a basic clinical nutritional or health perspective.” He argued that the results “also contradict other more granular, comprehensive and representative data on added sugar intake in the US population, which has actually gone down/leveled off.”     To put these findings into clearer context, it helps to understand just how much Americans already consume. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control approximates that the average daily sugar consumption for Americans falls somewhere around 68 grams per person — which is equivalent to roughly 17 teaspoons. Kelly Horton, senior vice president of public policy & government relations at the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, noted that leading health authorities recommend a daily intake “significantly lower than this.” A 2023 study found that though added sugar consumption in the U.S. has declined in recent decades, “many Americans still consume too much,” while another recent study found one in three U.S. youths consume more than 15 percent of their daily total calories from added sugars. “We have seen with this study, and other studies, that Americans, especially children, are consuming way higher amounts in terms of added sugars and their diet,” said Eric Crosbie, a political scientist studying public health policy at the University of Nevada, Reno, who also did not participate in the new paper. Crosbie added that the scientists’ findings share connective tissue with a policy document out last week that has America’s public health community abuzz: the Trump administration’s long-awaited Make America Healthy Again strategy report. “So the way this ties into the MAHA report is there’s actually very little in [the MAHA report] about addressing the reduction of sugar with children. The stuff that is mentioned, it doesn’t seem like there’s a clear plan,” he said. “It’s a lot of lip service. It’s a lot of, they’ll say that they’ll address this, but there’s really no coherent plan or strategy.”  Read Next Trump’s latest USDA cuts undermine his plan to ‘Make America Healthy Again’ Ayurella Horn-Muller Led by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the MAHA document advances earlier statements from the administration about the urgent need to reform the diets of Americans to reduce chronic illnesses in kids. Though the plan calls the average American child’s diet a source of “declining health” and identifies excess sugar consumption as one of the contributing factors behind the issue — “sugar is poison” has been a rallying cry of RFK Jr. this year — food and nutrition experts say the commission’s roadmap lacks regulatory teeth.  For instance, noticeably absent from the plan is any mention of increasing taxes on sugary drinks, a strategy that has been proven to be highly effective in reducing household sugar consumption, according to Crosbie. An excise tax enacted between 2017 and 2018 on sugary beverages in Seattle, Boulder, Philadelphia, Oakland, and San Francisco yielded dramatic results when beverage product purchasing rates in all five cities fell by about 33 percent after retail prices were increased by 33.1 percent in the same timeframe. “That’s a big, big mistake to miss that,” said Crosbie. “A lot of us in the public health community feel the report has been hijacked by the corporations.”  Now, it appears as though the Trump administration may be poised to ignore another contributing factor to the high amount of sugar in Americans’ diets — climate change. Without concerted action to mitigate emissions, the new study demonstrates how the health burden of global warming could be magnified by the growing amount of excess sugar Americans are on track to consume as average temperatures continue to climb.  “We know that climate change is an existential public health threat, but there’s no mention of that in the MAHA report,” said Betsy Southerland, a 30-year veteran of the Environmental Protection Agency and former director of science and technology in the agency’s Office of Water. “The way the MAHA report is designed, it’s very much in line with the anti-climate scientists, the climate deniers in the Trump administration. There’s no mention of greenhouse gas at all.” Sutherland told Grist the report also omits any requests to regulate processed foods or dyes, and multiple pathways to toxic exposure — all of which affect the food supply.  “It’s a spin document,” said Southerland. “Don’t pay any attention to what it says, pay attention to what they do in this administration to protect children’s health.”  This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How climate change is fueling your sugar addiction on Sep 18, 2025.

Climate
Health
Food

Australia announces higher emissions cuts by 2035

The country is one of the world's biggest carbon emitters per capita.

Australia, one of the world's biggest polluters per capita, will aim to cut its carbon emissions by at least 62% compared to 2005 levels over the next decade.The nation - which has faced global criticism for its continued reliance on fossil fuels - had previously pledged to reduce greenhouse gases by 43% by 2030."This is a responsible target supported by science and a practical plan to get there, built on proven technology," Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said when unveiling the new target on Thursday.A landmark risk assessment commissioned by the government this week warned Australia faced a future of increasingly extreme weather conditions as a result of man-made climate change.Setting a target to reduce emissions from 2005 levels is part of Australia's obligation under the Paris Climate Agreement.The new target is in line with an emission reduction benchmark – of between 62% and 70% – that was recommended by the Climate Change Authority, a government body which provides climate policy advice, Albanese said.The prime minister will confirm the commitment at a meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York later this month.The 2015 Paris Climate Agreement saw world leaders agree to keep global temperatures from rising 1.5C above those of the late 19th Century, which is seen as crucial to preventing the most damaging impacts of climate change.Australia, like much of the world, has faced an increasing number of climate-related weather extremes in recent years including severe drought, historic bushfires and successive years of record-breaking floods.Warmer seas have also caused mass bleaching at its world-famous Great Barrier Reef in Queensland and Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia. On Monday, a report into the impact of climate change - the first of its kind in the country - found Australia had already reached warming of above 1.5C and that no community would be immune from "cascading, compounding and concurrent" climate risks.It warned that if the government failed to take stronger action there would be more heatwave-related deaths, poorer water quality due to severe flooding and bushfires, and sea level rises that would threaten 1.5 million people. It also warned of a A$611bn ($406bn; £300bn) drop in property values as a result of such threats.However, Australia's climate agenda and its ambition to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 remain divisive political topics. The country's opposition party, the Liberal National coalition, is internally debating whether it should continue to support the net zero emissions goal, while other parliamentarians - including many independent and Greens MPs - are calling for faster cuts.Opposition leader Sussan Ley on Thursday said the coalition was "dead against" the new target, saying that it failed on both "cost and credibility".Shortly after Albanese's Labor government was elected in 2022 it set higher climate targets, up from the conservative coalition's previous target of between 26% and 28%.It has sought to make Australia a "renewable energy superpower", but has also continued to approve fossil fuel projects. Last week, one of the country's largest gas projects - Woodside's North West Shelf - was given the greenlight to keep operating for another 40 years until 2070, in a move that was widely condemned by climate experts and environmental advocates. Australian Greens Larissa Waters labelled the move a "betrayal" by Labor.

Climate
Energy
Government

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