US will Stop Tracking the Costs of Extreme Weather Fueled by Climate Change

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will no longer track the cost of climate change-fueled weather disasters, including floods, heat waves, wildfires and more. It is the latest example of changes to the agency and the Trump administration limiting federal government resources on climate change.

NOAA falls under the U.S. Department of Commerce and is tasked with daily weather forecasts, severe storm warnings and climate monitoring. It is also parent to the National Weather Service.

The agency said its National Centers for Environmental Information would no longer update its Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters database beyond 2024, and that its information — going as far back as 1980 — would be archived.

For decades, it has tracked hundreds of major events across the country, including destructive hurricanes, hail storms, droughts and freezes that have totaled trillions of dollars in damage.

The database uniquely pulls information from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s assistance data, insurance organizations, state agencies and more to estimate overall losses from individual disasters.

NOAA Communications Director 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.