Shorelines are highly variable environments characterized by a number of natural hazards, including tsunami, storm surge, high winds, coastal erosion, sea level rise, and high-wave overtopping. Building on eroding coasts increases vulnerability to all these hazards. A direct step to mitigating the impact of coastal hazards is to exercise avoidance by mapping high-hazard zones.
This guide provides a process that communities can use to assess the costs and benefits of green infrastructure to reduce flooding. The framework can be adapted for their own purposes to inform planning-scale assessments and spark discussion about green infrastructure options to mitigate flooding and provide other watershed benefits.
Developed by the National Weather Service, the SLOSH model estimates storm surge heights resulting from historical, hypothetical, or predicted hurricanes by taking into account the atmospheric pressure, size, forward speed, and track data. These parameters are used to create a model of the wind field which drives the storm surge. The model consists of a set of equations derived from the Newtonian equations of motion (shallow water equations) and the continuity equation applied to a rotating fluid with a free surface.
The Quarterly Climate Impacts and Outlook for the Western Region—encompassing Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming—provides a summary of the region's weather and climate impacts from the previous quarter, and outlooks for conditions during the coming quarter.
These state summaries were produced to meet a demand for state-level information in the wake of the Third U.S. National Climate Assessment, released in 2014. The summaries cover assessment topics directly related to NOAA’s mission, specifically historical climate variations and trends, future climate model projections of climate conditions during the 21st century, and past and future conditions of sea level and coastal flooding. Click on each state to see key messages, figures, and and a summary of climate impacts in your state.
The Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System (PacIOOS) collects real-time data on ocean conditions, forecasts future events, and develops user-friendly tools to help users access this information. In collaboration with a large network of partners, PacIOOS provides information, tools, and services to help inform decision making in Pacific communities on a daily basis.
Just offshore from many Pacific Islands, coral reefs comprise some of the most biologically rich and economically valuable areas on our planet. Reef ecosystems support an array of striped, spotted, and camouflaged fish; soft-bellied and armored invertebrates; and hundreds of other life forms. Reefs also provide valuable ecosystem services that support island economies.
The soil was cracking, the leaves were turning brown, and the groundwater was becoming saltier. Drought had come to the northern atolls of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) in January 2013.
“You see that rain out there?” asked meteorologist Chip Guard, looking up at the horizon. “It’s falling from the sky but not hitting the ground. We call that virga. You know where we see virga? In deserts.”
As large waves washed over the seawalls of Majuro in the pre-dawn hours of Monday, March 3, 2014, police banged on residents’ doors, telling them that their properties were flooding and that they needed to evacuate.
“I was in bed at home, as most people were, because it was 3 a.m.,” recalls Angela Saunders, who was awakened by a phone call from a colleague alerting her to the high swells.
This website serves as a digital version of the quarterly publication, Hawaii and U.S. Pacific Islands Region Climate Impacts and Outlook. Brief updates on recent climate impacts to facilities and infrastructure, water resources, agriculture, natural resources, and public health make it easy to find information of interest. The site features a range of graphic products that show outlooks for the next season.