Coast to coast: How climate change is intensifying natural disasters across the nation

Over 1 million acres have burned in California during wildfires in 2024 so far. The nation saw this year’s tornado season to be one of the most active on record. Hurricanes Helene and Milton combined are likely to cost over $50 billion in damages, and costs are still being assessed. In the U.S., there have been 24 confirmed climate disaster events like these with losses exceeding $1 billion as of Nov. 1, 2024.

As the nation grapples with these extreme weather events, experts warn that as the climate warms, storms and natural disasters such as destructive wildfires and record hurricanes will only become more frequent and intensify faster. Earth’s surface temperature has increased by 2 degrees Fahrenheit since recordkeeping began in 1850 — although it's a seemingly small jump, it means a significant increase in accumulated heat on the planet.

“[Climate change’s] fingerprints are all over the storms. It's because, for decades, climatologists have predicted that we are going to see stronger storms — more intensive storms — because of the warming oceans and the atmosphere,” said John Dorsey, Ph.D., professor of civil engineering and environmental science.

Warmer oceans mean more humidity over the water, and Dorsey explained that “the gasoline of storms is water vapor.” In the Gulf of Mexico — where both Hurricane Helene and Milton originated — the water was about 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than it would have been in a world without climate change.

“When hurricanes arrive, they may have more energy ... but also, they carry more water, which means the impacts of flooding and the intensity of the rains are greater … That, collectively, leads to this idea that hurricanes are getting worse,” said Eric Strauss, Ph.D., president's professor of biology at LMU and executive director of the Center for Urban Resilience. “Their impacts are worsened because [of] some of the social and economic choices we made about how we respond to hurricanes.”

Strauss cited that approximately $1.4 trillion worth of property assets are within one-eighth of a mile of the U.S. coastline. This puts more houses in harm's way as sea levels rise due to melting glaciers and thermal expansion of water as it warms. Strauss explained that communities would be much safer if they moved away from areas that are at highest risk because of climate change — instead, the opposite is happening.

“In the 30-year period of time since they’ve been keeping track of this stuff, 30 million people have moved [closer] to the coast — it’s this phenomenon. A similar phenomenon is [that] almost a third of the homes in the [U.S.] are built in the area we call the 'wildland [urban] interface,' which puts them at high risk for wildfires,” said Strauss. “The places that are most highly populated right now in the [U.S.] are areas that are prone to wildfires or prone to coastal storms. It’s a recipe for real complexity.”

This, Dorsey explains, is what is causing many insurance companies to pull out of at-risk areas — specifically noting Allstate pulling out of California in 2023 due to worsening wildfire conditions. All over the nation, there is a mounting insurance crisis that is causing companies to increase policy rates in states that experience more severe climate events.

“Whole communities have been wiped out. How long is it going to take to recover from that? … I think everybody's asking themselves, how much more can [communities] take? We've seen this in the fire-prone areas — you rebuild and here comes another disastrous wildfire,” said Dorsey.

Communities affected are not without help from the government, though. Disaster relief organizations, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), can provide aid so that local resources are not solely used to fix problems the community is facing.

“Whenever a natural disaster happens, it's this tremendous setback to a community’s planned social and economic growth … The challenge is that [aid] money is now going to rebuild what was already there, as opposed to the planned infrastructure improvements that would overall help the community be more resilient,” explained Strauss.

With so many disasters back-to-back across the nation, however, Strauss noted that these resources — local and federal — begin to run thin, made prevalent by the issues FEMA and SBA are currently facing. FEMA’s funds may not make it through the rest of hurricane season, while SBA’s disaster loan program funds are exhausted.

“FEMA is vastly underfunded now because of all the disasters we've been having. Where do they get their money? … From Congress. Are all the politicians in Congress on board with climate change?” asked Dorsey. “You have to have a majority to pass legislation … [and] it takes congressional act in order to put more funding into FEMA.”

This leaves communities destroyed and with two options: rebuild again or move to a more livable place — what Dorsey calls “environmental migrants.” In the case of houses being destroyed by hurricanes, Strauss explained that federal flood insurance was provided to cover initial losses, but if homeowners chose to stay they may not be eligible for future coverage. This system was put in place to encourage relocation, but within today’s political climate, the idea has been twisted and rumors have begun to form.

“This is being exploited as a misinformation campaign. You hear ... ‘The government’s coming to take your house,’ and no — the emergency management, they're offering to buy out and give you the insurance so you don't have to go through this again,” said Strauss. “The house was put in an area that was at risk — it may have been [an] acceptable risk at the time the house was built … but it's not an acceptable risk now.”

Misinformation surrounding disasters has now become a common part of the U.S. political landscape. Other rumors also began swirling regarding this year’s hurricanes — such as disaster survivors only receiving $750 to support their recovery — prompting FEMA to create a hurricane rumor response page. Milan Tangirala, film and television production major from West Palm Beach, Florida shared that political discourse in the media surrounding the hurricanes left him feeling disheartened.

“When your hometown is getting partially destroyed by a natural disaster that you could attribute to climate change — the fact there are those two big hurricanes in one week and another third one brewing further north — and then there's people saying that it's a certain political party with a weather machine … it doesn't give me any hope for the future. It's pretty bothersome to hear that sort of record,” said Tangirala.

This is precisely why scientists such as Strauss and Dorsey underscored the need to educate the public on issues regarding climate change and its effects — not just for the needs of the nation, but for the needs of the Earth as well.

“Climate change is complicated. It's nonlinear. It's huge. You need supercomputers to understand this, but we can distill this knowledge into things that [humans] do understand … We don't have a planet B, as the saying goes,” said Strauss. “We're all in this together and we have to get it right, because the anthropogenic impacts of humans are extraordinary.”