Despite so many important climate-change stories to discuss, the extreme storms of September have pushed themselves to the front of the line.

Reuters reports on the worst flooding in Europe in at least two decades. The Washington Post notes that the storm dropped “several months” of rain in just a few days — a phrase that is becoming so common it is beginning to lose its meaning. The storm was a product of a rare combination of meteorological factors, starting with “an unusually powerful outbreak of cold air in western Europe that clashed with exceptionally warm weather to the east. Human-caused climate change probably intensified the ensuing deluge by warming the air and the water that fed into the storm.” The Guardian observed that, despite major flood damage across Austria, Vienna “escaped widespread destruction thanks to retention basins big enough to dissipate the one-in-1,000-year flood on the River Wien, a tributary of the Danube, limiting damage largely to roads and railways.” This is an example of “building resilience” to our new climate.

Deadly floods and typhoons also caused death and destruction in China, Vietnam and across Africa. The New York Times reports that Typhoon Bebinca was the strongest storm to hit Shanghai since 1949. The city’s two airports were closed, major attractions such as Disneyland shut down and several high-speed train routes were temporarily halted. While the city was recovering, meteorologists called attention to the fact that another typhoon was forming. Indeed, Typhoon Pulasan struck Shanghai a week later.

The New York Times reports that flooding across west and central Africa has forced one million people from their homes. At least 1,000 people are dead and hundreds of thousands of homes destroyed, but understanding the extent of damage and death has been difficult because of the scale of the impacts. Up to four million people have been affected by the floods. “Rising waters swept crocodiles and deadly snakes out of the zoo and into communities. The floods are hitting communities already racked by conflict, displacement and poverty. Even worse flooding is forecast for later in the year.” “In Nigeria, for instance, the United Nations has less than half of the $927 million it says it needs to save lives by providing food and clean water, and preventing disease.” The New York Times reports that over a hundred people are dead in Nepal due to intense flooding during monsoon rains.

In North America, Hurricane John smashed into Guerrero, Mexico, killing at least 22 people. The Guardian describes how the storm then moved offshore, re-formed and pummeled the west coast of Mexico for most of the week, bringing torrential rain and floods. In Acapulco, more than three times as much rain fell as did last fall when Hurricane Otis hit this city.

While Hurricane John was hammering Mexico, a disorganized set of thunderstorms in the Caribbean grew into Hurricane Helene. Stable atmospheric conditions and extremely warm water in the Gulf of Mexico allowed this storm to quickly intensify into a Category 4 storm of enormous size when it made landfall along the Big Bend region of Florida. The Washington Post notes that the storm was one of the largest ever to strike the Gulf Coast, with tropical-storm-force winds across 420 miles (two hundred miles from landfall, in Tampa Bay, records were set for storm-surge height). The New York Times describes the destruction in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and into Tennessee. As of this writing, over 100 people had died, 3.5 million were without power and more rain had fallen in Atlanta than anytime since 1886. The damage in Florida is compounded by the fact that Helene is the third hurricane to strike the Big Bend region in the last 13 months (in Perry, FL, the hurricane peeled off the new roof that was installed on a church to repair damage from Hurricane Idalia last year). Western North Carolina has been particularly hard hit — as of this writing, I have been unable to contact my college roommate who lives outside of Asheville.

Meteorologist Jeff Masters observes that “Helene’s Cat 4 landfall gives the U.S. a record eight Cat 4 or Cat 5 Atlantic hurricane landfalls in the past eight years (2017-2024), seven of them being continental U.S. landfalls. That’s as many Cat 4 and 5 landfalls as occurred in the prior 57 years.” The Atlantic describes how climate change is increasing the odds of storms like Helene. The AP reports that “Moody’s Analytics said it expects $15 billion to $26 billion in property damage,” but the Guardian quotes the chief meteorologist at AccuWeather that costs will be $95-110 billion.

The New York Times notes that the repeated disasters are causing some in Florida to wonder if it is worth staying, while thousands of new residents arrive every year. Another article describes the incentives that continue to drive people to purchase homes in flood zones. These include access to the shore and affordability. In the five boroughs of New York City, “over $3.6 billion worth of one- to three-family homes sold last year were likely to flood before the end of a 30-year mortgage.”

Inside Climate News summarizes a worrisome new report that documents methane concentration in the atmosphere (at about 1.9 ppm) has reached almost three times the pre-industrial level. Methane is a more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, but does not reside as long in the atmosphere before breaking down. The new report suggests that the natural release of methane from ecosystems is accelerating as the planet warms. In addition, our warmer atmosphere now holds more water vapor, and this water vapor slows the rate at which methane breaks down. These two changes are working to offset the reduction of methane emissions from industrial and agricultural sources, suggesting that the warming impacts of methane will be growing. This article links to a great visualization from NASA of global methane emissions.

The Washington Post notes that “that human-caused methane emissions grew as much as 20 percent between 2000 and 2020 and now account for at least a third of total annual releases.” “Methane is responsible for about a third of the roughly 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming that has occurred since the late 1800s, according to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.” Consequently, controlling methane emissions could have immediate climate benefits.

As the growth rate in EV sales has slowed in the U.S., automakers are responding by shifting resources away from EV production. The New York Times reports that Ford announced “it would retool a plant in Canada to produce large pickup trucks rather than the electric sport-utility vehicles it had previously planned to make there.” GM also announced it would reduce EV production in the next few years. While U.S. demand is slowing, it is still growing, and in July over half the cars sold in China were EVs. So EVs are clearly here to stay. Indeed, The Washington Post quotes Ford Motor CEO James Farley: “We believe that the fitness of the Chinese in EVs will eventually wash over our entire industry in all regions.”

The Washington Post notes that this investment pull-back is a pattern seen before, as “legacy businesses react slowly — and then too frantically — to start-ups that are willing to endure massive losses attempting to change the rules of the game.” Such pull-backs also occurred in streaming and on-line retailing before the new technologies expanded into the existing market. New York Magazine examines the politics of EVs, as Donald Trump has campaigned against an “EV mandate,” which does not exist. What does exist is tens of thousands of jobs in the EV industry in the swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia.

Grist reports on efforts to ban internal-combustion cars in the 1960s due to the health impacts of auto exhaust. These efforts started in California, but spread to other states and to Washington D.C. In a 1970 address to Congress, President Nixon announced a public-private partnership “with the goal of producing an unconventionally powered, virtually pollution-free automobile within five years.” While these efforts failed, due in-part to panic-induced lobbying by the auto industry, they did contribute political momentum to laws controlling auto pollution.

The Washington Post takes an in-depth look at solar grazing, the practice of grazing animals (particularly sheep) among solar arrays. This is a form of joint land usage by agriculture and solar power, often termed “agrivoltaics,” that is growing in popularity because it addresses local concerns about the loss of agricultural land in communities as large-scale solar arrays are installed. The growing interest in this practice is apparent as “the Energy Department launched the Large Animal and Solar System Operations (LASSO) Prize, providing millions of dollars for research around solar development and cattle grazing.” The potential for this practice is large, as meat and dairy production accounts for 44% of all agricultural land use in the U.S. When well-managed, the practice has multiple benefits, including building biodiversity, sequestering carbon and increasing soil organic matter. The quality and quantity of forage is enhanced by the shading of the panels, which also provides health benefits for livestock.

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