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    Monday briefing: The ‘toxic cocktail’ of climate denial, federal cuts and the Texas floods

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    Good morning. The death toll from the catastrophic floods in Texas has climbed to 129, including at least 27 children and counsellors at Camp Mystic in Kerr County.With more than 160 people still missing, authorities warn that the number of casualties is likely to rise. On Sunday morning, some search operations were cancelled as heavy rain and strong winds battered the state once again.The flash floods, which swept through large parts of central Texas, are being described as one of the worst natural disasters in the state’s history. At Camp Mystic, rain gauges recorded 6.5in (16.5cm) of rainfall in just 180 minutes.In addition to the human cost, the floods have caused widespread destruction. According to a preliminary estimate by private forecaster AccuWeather, the economic toll could range from $18bn to $22bn (£13.2bn to £16.2bn).The floods struck as the climate crisis worsens, and as the Trump administration’s hollowing out of federal agencies has left critical services such as the National Weather Service under severe strain. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is also facing continued threats of defunding.Yet, despite the scale of devastation, there has been little public reckoning over climate breakdown or the erosion of essential public services. Instead, conspiracy theories have abounded.To understand how this catastrophe unfolded and the political response to it, I spoke to Oliver Milman, the Guardian US environment reporter. That’s after the headlines.Five big stories

    Israel-Gaza | An Israeli airstrike has killed at least 10 people, including six children, who were waiting to collect water in Gaza, Palestinian health officials have said. Dozens of others were killed in Gaza over the weekend in a separate strike near a food aid distribution site. Meanwhile, former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert has said that a proposed “humanitarian city” would be a concentration camp for Palestinians.

    Health | Health officials have urged people to come forward for the measles vaccine if they are not up to date with their shots after a child at Alder Hey children’s hospital in Liverpool died from the disease.

    UK news | Charlotte Church, veteran peace campaigners, Trade unionists, activists and politicians, are among hundreds who have signed a letter describing the move to ban the group Palestine Action as “a major assault on our freedoms”.

    Spain | Several people were hurt in a second night of anti-migrant unrest in the town of Torre Pacheco in south-east Spain after a pensioner was beaten up, authorities said.

    NHS | Health secretory Wes Streeting will meet representatives from the British Medical Association this week as he looks to avert five days of strikes by resident doctors.
    In depth: What we know so farView image in fullscreenThe devastating floods began in the early hours of 4 July, Independence Day in the US. Oliver Milman told me that what started out as a seemingly small storm stalled in an area where two rivers in central Texas meet, and dumped an enormous amount of rain.“It caused the river to burst its banks, swept away homes, cars, flooded rivers and, most tragically, caught up on Camp Mystic,” Oliver said. “There’s still hope that some people could be rescued, but it’s certainly going to be one of the biggest, deadliest natural disasters in recent US history.”Oliver said there are several factors that could explain why this flood was so devastating. We also get into the responses from elected officials and other players.How much of this is down to the climate crisis?As the planet gets hotter, mostly because of humans burning fossil fuels, the atmosphere is able to hold more moisture. One meteorologist told Oliver that the Earth’s atmosphere is now like a giant sponge.“You’ve got more moisture in the atmosphere, and more energy because it’s getting hotter, and therefore you’re getting more of these extreme precipitation events happening in several places around the world, including parts of the eastern US. But the western half of the US seems to be getting more drought,” Oliver said. “So, very crudely speaking, half the country’s not getting enough rain, and the other half is getting too much in these intense downpours.”He pointed to some interesting statistics from the Environment Protection Agency: of the 10 heaviest precipitation single-day events in US history going back to 1910, nine have happened since 1995. “We’re clearly getting more and more of these events. There’s been research done showing they’re becoming more common in Texas and will continue to as the world heats up,” Oliver added.The geography of central Texas also made the floods more catastrophic. “It’s hilly and has these canyons, lots of rivers, and not much topsoil. So when rain hits, it flies off the ground very quickly. It’s known as “Flash Flood Alley” in some places, so that was a factor. The rain hit, and the devastation followed.”What impact have Donald Trump’s cuts had?The other factor, which Oliver likened to a toxic cocktail, is the political situation in the US.“The Trump administration has essentially tried to gut the federal workforce: firing scientists, firing weather forecasters, trying to eliminate large sections of the scientific agencies that deal with climate change. So you had a situation where a lot of National Weather Service offices, which track storms and issue warnings, were critically understaffed,” Oliver explained.Democrats have called for an investigation into whether the sweeping cuts introduced by the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), once led by Elon Musk, played any role in the disaster. The Trump administration has dismissed any suggestion that its policies had an impact.“The Trump administration has pushed back quite hard and said this was an act of God, there were adequate resources, and so on,” Oliver said. Yet, understaffing was an issue and there was a disconnect between the meteorologists issuing warnings and the emergency services, he said.“The National Weather Service issued a warning about dangerous flood conditions at 1.14am [on 4 July], but there wasn’t – and it’s still unclear why – coordination with emergency services to evacuate people, to mobilise resources in enough time. A lot of people are pointing fingers at the cuts Trump has made to the coordination services usually handled by the federal government.”And it’s not just Trump that people are focusing on. The week before the floods, Texas senator Ted Cruz, ensured that the “big, beautiful bill”, a Republican spending bill pushed through and signed by Trump on Independence Day, would include particular cuts.“It does a lot of things: cuts the social safety net, people lose health care, gives tax breaks to the wealthy, removes food assistance, guts support for clean energy,” Oliver said. “But one thing it also did was remove a $150m fund to improve weather forecasting at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Cruz personally inserted the language to cut that and then, tragically, just days later this storm hit his home state and killed many people. So there are a lot of questions being asked about his role and whether those cuts played a significant role.”Republicans have largely fallen into line on the Texas floods, lavishing praise on Trump, while avoiding questions around the effect of Doge.Has this moved the dial on the climate emergency?In Texas, the reaction on the ground has been one of disbelief and devastation, Oliver said. “There’s a lot of ‘thoughts and prayers’ rhetoric in Texas right now, a sense of rallying to help those in need. People are mainly stunned rather than immediately pointing fingers, although local officials are raising questions about how much warning they got from the National Weather Service. There are also concerns about the local government’s actions. There had been a plan to install an early-warning flood system along the river, but the idea was ditched because it was considered too expensive. So you’ve got this local angle, too.”Far-right players have descended on central Texas in a stunt they claim is part of a “disaster relief” effort. In a video posted by one group, they say their so-called “activists” are distributing supplies to survivors, but make clear that they are prioritising “their people” and “European peoples” in those operations.As is now common when disaster strikes, conspiracy theories are being spread, Oliver said, by rightwing influencers and elected representatives such as Marjorie Taylor Greene. “They have questioned the cause [of the flood], whether it’s weather modification, cloud seeding, some nefarious machine. There’s this irony: we are modifying the weather – it’s called climate change. But it’s not the kind of weather modification they’re talking about.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOliver isn’t surprised by this reaction. “People are now able to live in their own realities, sealed off from facts,” he said. “Whatever people believed before the storm, the storm just reinforced it. That’s become a recurring theme, not just in disasters but in politics more broadly. People are very entrenched here. I know that’s also an issue in the UK and Europe, but in the US things feel paralysed. I don’t know if this will move anyone’s opinion.”What else we’ve been readingView image in fullscreen

    Two museums in Ukraine, writes Charlotte Higgins, have found new ways to propagate the history and culture the Russian invasion had hoped to erase. It’s a haunting tribute to resourcefulness under fire. Alex Needham, acting head of newsletters

    In a devastating New Yorker interview (£), Unicef’s James Elder speaks of seeing children in Gaza with fourth-degree burns and shrapnel wounds, screaming in agony due to a lack of painkillers, all amid a deadly crisis of hunger and thirst. Aamna

    We’re told that Britain is an angry nation, hostile to refugees, climate activists and people on benefits. But in fact, John Harris argues, the population’s views are broadly in line with those of the audience at Glastonbury – so why aren’t we represented by the mainstream political parties? Alex

    The Guardian’s Dan Sabbagh reports from northern France on the enduring human drive to reach the UK – a spirit that continues to defy 20 years of political and security efforts to stop irregular migration. Aamna

    Are you reading this after a terrible night’s sleep? In that case, click on this piece by Joel Snape, which is full of tips on how to make it through today without resorting to sugar, carbs and excessive amounts of coffee. Alex
    SportView image in fullscreenTennis | Jannik Sinner beat Carlos Alcaraz 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 in the Wimbledon men’s singles final, a month after losing to the Spaniard at the French Open. Sinner is the first Italian player to win a Wimbledon title.Cricket | India finished on 58 for 4 in the third test, needing another 135 runs to beat England on the final day after a sensational day’s play at Lord’s.Football | England surged into the last eight after Georgia Stanway sparked an emphatic 6-1 win against Wales. France trailed 2-1 at half-time but hit back to beat the Netherlands 5-2 – with two goals from Delphine Cascarino – to top Group D.The front pagesView image in fullscreenThe Guardian splashes on “Warning over Israeli ‘ethnic cleansing’ plan for Gaza,” an interview with former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert. The Times leads on “Bank could cut rates if jobs market slows down,” while the Telegraph goes with “Tax raid looms for middle classes.” The Metro splashes on “Politicians? We don’t trust any of you,” for the Express, it’s “Toothless’ new sex abuse laws won’t protect children,” the Mirror has “King backs Harry peace talks” on their family feud, and the Mail goes with “Labour’s doctors strike hypocrisy.” The FT leads on “Germany urges weapons suppliers to speed up European rearmament,” and for the i Paper, it’s “Measles surge fears for summer holidays after child dies amid low jab uptake.”Today in FocusView image in fullscreenSyria’s treasure hunting feverAfter the fall of Assad, a new business is booming in Syria: metal detectors. The items were banned by the regime but their return to shops means treasure hunters are searching for millenia-old burial sites, leaving the ancient city of Palmyra covered in holes. Reporter William Christou and Syrian archaeologist Amr Al-Azm speak with Michael Safi.Cartoon of the day | Ella BaronView image in fullscreenThe UpsideA bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all badView image in fullscreenSocial media can be brutal, but Brenda Allen is doing her bit to make it more benign. The 95-year-old, who lives in Cheshire, has proved a huge hit on TikTok. Her videos, in which she talks through her collection of Jellycat soft toys, have garnered more than 2m views, along with a flood of requests in the comments from people asking to adopt her as their gran.Brenda is now planning to auction her collection of Jellycats in aid of a children’s hospice. Her daughter Julie said that the family had been “blown away” by her moment of internet fame.Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every SundayBored at work?And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.

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      Key climate change reports removed from US government websites

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      Legally mandated US national climate assessments seem to have disappeared from the federal websites built to display them, making it harder for state and local governments and the public to learn what to expect in their back yards from a warming world.Scientists said the peer-reviewed authoritative reports save money and lives. Websites for the national assessments and the US Global Change Research Program were down Monday and Tuesday with no links, notes or referrals elsewhere. The White House, which was responsible for the assessments, said the information will be housed within Nasa to comply with the law, but gave no further details.Searches for the assessments on Nasa websites did not turn them up. Nasa did not respond to requests for information. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which coordinated the information in the assessments, did not respond to repeated inquiries.“It’s critical for decision-makers across the country to know what the science in the National Climate Assessment is. That is the most reliable and well-reviewed source of information about climate that exists for the United States,” said Kathy Jacobs, a University of Arizona climate scientist, who coordinated the 2014 version of the report.“It’s a sad day for the United States if it is true that the National Climate Assessment is no longer available,” Jacobs added. “This is evidence of serious tampering with the facts and with people’s access to information, and it actually may increase the risk of people being harmed by climate-related impacts.”Harvard climate scientist John Holdren, who was Barack Obama’s science adviser and whose office directed the assessments, said that after the 2014 edition, he visited governors, mayors and other local officials who told him how useful the 841-page report had been. It helped them decide whether to raise roads, build seawalls and even move hospital generators from basements to roofs, he said.“This is a government resource paid for by the taxpayer to provide the information that really is the primary source of information for any city, state or federal agency who’s trying to prepare for the impacts of a changing climate,” said Texas Tech climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, who has been a volunteer author for several editions of the report.Copies of past reports are still squirreled away in Noaa’s library. Nasa’s open science data repository includes dead links to the assessment site.The most recent report, issued in 2023, includes an interactive atlas that zooms down to the county level. It found that climate change is affecting people’s security, health and livelihoods in every corner of the country in different ways, with minority and Native American communities often disproportionately at risk.The 1990 Global Change Research Act requires a national climate assessment every four years and directs the president to establish an interagency United States Global Change Research Program. In the spring, the Trump administration told the volunteer authors of the next climate assessment that their services weren’t needed and ended the contract with the private firm that helps coordinate the website and report.Additionally, Noaa’s main climate.gov website was recently forwarded to a different Noaa website. Social media and blogs at Noaa and Nasa about climate impacts for the general public were cut or eliminated.“It’s part of a horrifying big picture,” Holdren said. “It’s just an appalling whole demolition of science infrastructure.”The national assessments are more useful than international climate reports put out by the UN every seven or so years because they are more localized and more detailed, Hayhoe and Jacobs said.The national reports are not only peer-reviewed by other scientists, but examined for accuracy by the National Academy of Sciences, federal agencies, the staff and the public.Hiding the reports would be censoring science, Jacobs said.It’s also dangerous for the country, Hayhoe said, comparing it to steering a car on a curving road by only looking through the rearview mirror: “And now, more than ever, we need to be looking ahead to do everything it takes to make it around that curve safely. It’s like our windshield’s being painted over.” More

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      Sudden loss of key US satellite data could send hurricane forecasting back ‘decades’

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      A critical US atmospheric data collection program will be halted by Monday, giving weather forecasters just days to prepare, according to a public notice sent this week. Scientists that the Guardian spoke with say the change could set hurricane forecasting back “decades”, just as this year’s season ramps up.In a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) message sent on Wednesday to its scientists, the agency said that “due to recent service changes” the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) will “discontinue ingest, processing and distribution of all DMSP data no later than June 30, 2025”.Due to their unique characteristics and ability to map the entire world twice a day with extremely high resolution, the three DMSP satellites are a primary source of information for scientists to monitor Arctic sea ice and hurricane development. The DMSP partners with Noaa to make weather data collected from the satellites publicly available.The reasons for the changes, and which agency was driving them, were not immediately clear. Noaa said they would not affect the quality of forecasting.However, the Guardian spoke with several scientists inside and outside of the US government whose work depends on the DMSP, and all said there are no other US programs that can form an adequate replacement for its data.“We’re a bit blind now,” said Allison Wing, a hurricane researcher at Florida State University. Wing said the DMSP satellites are the only ones that let scientists see inside the clouds of developing hurricanes, giving them a critical edge in forecasting that now may be jeopardized.“Before these types of satellites were present, there would often be situations where you’d wake up in the morning and have a big surprise about what the hurricane looked like,” said Wing. “Given increases in hurricane intensity and increasing prevalence towards rapid intensification in recent years, it’s not a good time to have less information.”The satellites also formed a unique source of data for tracking changes to the Arctic and Antarctic, and had been tracking changes to polar sea ice continuously for more than 40 years.“These are some of the regions that are changing the fastest around the planet,” said Carlos Moffat, an oceanographer at the University of Delaware who had been working on a research project in Antarctica that depended on DMSP data. “This new announcement about the sea ice data really amounts to blinding ourselves and preventing us from observing these critical systems.”Researchers say the satellites themselves are operating normally and do not appear to have suffered any errors that would physically prevent the data from continuing to be collected and distributed, so the abrupt data halt might have been an intentional decision.“It’s pretty shocking,” Moffat said. “It’s hard to imagine what would be the logic of removing access now and in such a sudden manner that it’s just impossible to plan for. I certainly don’t know of any other previous cases where we’re taking away data that is being collected, and we’re just removing it from public access.”The loss of DMSP comes as Noaa’s weather and climate monitoring services have become critically understaffed this year as Donald Trump’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) initiative has instilled draconian cuts to federal environmental programs.A current Noaa scientist who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation said that the action to halt the DMSP, when taken in context with other recent moves by the Trump administration, amounted to “a systematic destruction of science”.The researcher also confirmed that federal hurricane forecasters were left unprepared for the sudden change with only a few days of notice.“It’s an instant loss of roughly half of our capabilities,” said the scientist. “You can’t expect us to make accurate forecasts and warnings when you take the useful tools away. It frankly is an embarrassment for the government to pursue a course with less data and just pretend everything will be OK.”Scientists said the decision to halt the DMSP will result in immediately degraded hurricane forecasts during what is expected to be an above-average season as well as a gap in monitoring sea ice – just as Arctic sea ice is hitting new record lows.“This is a huge hit to our forecasting capabilities this season and beyond, especially our ability to predict rapid intensification or estimate the strength of storms in the absence of hurricane hunters,” said Michael Lowry, a meteorologist who has worked at Noaa’s National Hurricane Center and with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “The permanent discontinuation of data from these satellites is senseless, reckless and puts at risk the lives of tens of millions of Americans living in hurricane alley.”The DMSP dates back to 1963, when the Department of Defense determined a need for high-resolution cloud forecasts to help them plan spy missions. The program, which had been the longest-running weather satellite initiative in the federal government, has since evolved into a critical source of information not just on the inner workings of hurricanes, but also on polar sea ice, wildfires, solar flares and the aurora.In recent years, the DMSP had struggled to maintain consistent funding and priority within the Department of Defense as it transitioned away from its cold war mission. The only other nation with similar satellite capability is Japan, and messages posted earlier in June indicate that scientists had already been considering a switch to the Japanese data in case of a DMSP outage – though that transition will take time.Neither Noaa nor the Department of Defense specified exactly which service changes may have prompted such a critical program to be so abruptly halted.In a statement to the Guardian, Noaa’s communications director, Kim Doster, said: “The DMSP is a single dataset in a robust suite of hurricane forecasting and modeling tools in the National Weather Service portfolio. This routine process of data rotation and replacement would go unnoticed in past administrations, but the media is insistent on criticizing the great work that Noaa and its dedicated scientists perform every day.“Noaa’s data sources are fully capable of providing a complete suite of cutting-edge data and models that ensure the gold-standard weather forecasting the American people deserve.”One Noaa source the Guardian spoke to said the loss of DMSP’s high-resolution data could not be replaced by any other existing Noaa tool.A statement from an official at US space force, which is part of the Department of Defense, said: “The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) operates the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) for the DoD on behalf of the US Space Force, who has satellite control authority.”The official went on to say that Noaa receives the data from the US navy’s Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center (FNMOC) and added: “While the Space Force does provide DMSP data and processing software to DoD users, to include the US Navy, questions about the reasons for FNMOC’s changes to DMSP data processing should be directed to the Navy.“Even as FNMOC is making a change on their end, the posture on sharing DMSP data has not changed. Noaa has been making this DMSP data publicly available, and many non-DoD entities use this data that is originally processed by FNMOC.“DMSP satellites and instruments are still functional. The data provided to FNMOC is just one way the DoD uses DMSP data. DoD users (including the Navy) will continue to receive and operationally use DMSP data sent to weather satellite direct readout terminals across the DoD.”The Guardian is approaching the US navy for comment. More

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      ‘Flooding could end southern Appalachia’: the scientists on an urgent mission to save lives

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      The abandoned homes and razed lots along the meandering Troublesome Creek in rural eastern Kentucky is a constant reminder of the 2022 catastrophic floods that killed dozens of people and displaced thousands more.Among the hardest hit was Fisty, a tiny community where eight homes, two shops and nine people including a woman who uses a wheelchair, her husband and two children, were swept away by the rising creek. Some residents dismissed cellphone alerts of potential flooding due to mistrust and warning fatigue, while for others it was already too late to escape. Landslides trapped the survivors and the deceased for several days.In response, geologists from the University of Kentucky secured a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and raced around collecting perishable data in hope of better understanding the worst flooding event to hit the region in a generation.View image in fullscreenOn a recent morning in Fisty, Harold Baker sat smoking tobacco outside a new prefabricated home while his brother James worked on a car in a makeshift workshop. With no place else to go, the Baker family rebuilt the workshop on the same spot on Troublesome Creek with financial assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema).“I feel depressed, everyone else is gone now. The days are long. It feels very lonely when the storms come in,” said Baker, 55, whose four dogs also drowned in 2022. With so few people left, the car repair business is way down, the road eerily quiet.Since the flood that took everything, Harold and James patrol the river every time it rains. The vigilance helped avert another catastrophe on Valentine’s Day after another so-called generational storm. No one died but the trauma, like the river, came roaring back.“I thought we were going to lose everything again, it was scary,” said Baker.At this spot in July 2022, geologist Ryan Thigpen found flood debris on top of two-storey buildings – 118in (3 metres) off the ground. The water mark on Harold’s new trailer shows the February flood hit 23in.Troublesome creek is a 40-mile narrow tributary of the north fork of the Kentucky River, which, like many waterways across southern Appalachia, does not have a single gauge. Yet these rural mountain hollers are getting slammed over and over by catastrophic flooding – and landslides – as the climate crisis increases rainfall across the region and warmer waters in the Gulf of Mexico turbocharge storms.Two years after 45 people died in the 2022 floods, the scale of disaster grew with Hurricane Helene, which killed more than 230 people with almost half the deaths in Appalachia, after days of relentless rain turned calm streams into unstoppable torrents.Another 23 people died during the February 2025 rains, then 24 more in April during a four-day storm that climate scientists found was made significantly more likely and more severe by the warming planet.View image in fullscreenThe extreme weather is making life unbearable and economically unviable for a chronically underserved region where coal was once king, and climate skepticism remains high. Yet little is known about flooding in the Appalachian region. It’s why the geologists – also called earth scientists – got involved.“This is where most people are going to die unless we create reliable warning systems and model future flood risks for mitigation and to help mountain communities plan for long-term resilience. Otherwise, these extreme flooding events could be the end of southern Appalachia,” said Thigpen.Amid accelerating climate breakdown the urgency of the mission is clear. Yet this type of applied science could be derailed – or at least curtailed – by the unprecedented assault on science, scientists and federal agencies by Donald Trump and his billionaire donors.Danielle Baker, Harold’s sister-in-law (James’s wife), had her bags packed a week in advance of the February flood and was glued to local television weather reports, which, like the geologists, rely on meteorological forecasting by the taxpayer-funded National Weather Service (NWS).She was “scared to death” watching the creek rise so high again. But this time the entire family, including 11 dogs and several cats, evacuated to the church on the hill where they waited 26 hours for the water to subside.View image in fullscreen“The people in this community are the best you could meet, but it’s a ghost town now. I didn’t want to rebuild so close to the creek, but we had nowhere else to go. Every time it rains, I can’t sleep,” she said, wiping away tears with her shirt.Danielle was unaware of Trump’s plans to dismantle Fema and slash funding from the NWS and NSF. “A lot of people here would not know what to do without Fema’s help. We need more information about the weather, better warnings, because the rains are getting worse,” she said.A day after the Guardian’s visit in mid-May, a NWS office in eastern Kentucky scrambled to cover the overnight forecast as severe storms moved through the region, triggering multiple tornadoes that eventually killed 28 people. Hundreds of staff have left the NWS in recent months, through a combination of layoffs and buyouts at the behest of Trump mega-donor Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge).Yet statewide, two-thirds of Kentuckians voted for Trump last year, with his vote share closer to 80% in rural communities hit hard by extreme weather, where many still blame Barack Obama for coal mine closures.“It doesn’t matter if people don’t believe in climate change. It’s going to wallop them anyway. We need to think about watersheds differently. This is a new world of extremes and cascading hazards,” said Thigpen, the geologist.The rapidly changing climate is rendering the concept of once-in-a-generation floods, which is mostly based on research by hydrologists going back a hundred years or so, increasingly obsolete. Geologists, on the other hand, look back 10,000 years, which could help better understand flooding patterns when the planet was warmer.Thigpen is spearheading this close-knit group of earth scientists from the university’s hazards team based in Lexington. On a recent field trip, nerdy jokes and constant teasing helped keep the mood light, but the scientists are clearly affected by the devastation they have witnessed since 2022. The team has so far documented more than 3,000 landslides triggered by that single extreme rain event, and are still counting.View image in fullscreenThis work is part of a broader statewide push to increase climate resiliency and bolster economic growth using Kentucky-specific scientific research. Last year, the initiative got a major boost when the state secured $24m from the NSF for a five-year research project involving eight Kentucky institutions that has created dozens of science jobs and hundreds of new student opportunities.The grant helped pay for high-tech equipment – drones, radars, sensors and computers – the team needs to collect data and build models to improve hazard prediction and create real-time warning systems.View image in fullscreenAfter major storms, the team measures water levels and analyzes the sediment deposits left behind to calculate the scale and velocity of the flooding, which in turn helps calibrate the model.The models help better understand the impact of the topography and each community’s built and natural environment – important for future mitigation. In these parts, coal was extracted using mountaintop mine removal, which drastically altered the landscape. Mining – and redirected waterways – can affect the height of a flood, according to a recent study by PhD student Meredith Swallom.A paleo-flood project is also under way, and another PhD student, Luciano Cardone, will soon begin digging into a section of the Kentucky riverbank to collect layers of sediment that holds physical clues on the date, size and velocity of ancient floods. Cardone, who found one local missionary’s journal describing flooding in 1795, will provide a historical or geological perspective to catastrophic flooding in the region, which the team believe will help better predict future hazards under changing climatic conditions.View image in fullscreenAll this data is analyzed at the new lab located in the Kentucky Geological Survey (KGS) department where super-powerful computers are positioned around a ceiling-to-floor black board, with a groovy lamp and artwork to get the creative mathematical juices flowing.So far the team has developed one working flood risk model for a single section of the Kentucky River. This will serve as a template, as each watershed requires its own model so that the data is manageable, precise and useful.This sort of applied science has the capacity to directly improve the lives of local people, including many Trump voters, as well as benefiting other mountainous flood-prone areas across the US and globally. But a flood warning system can only work if there is reliable meteorological forecasting going forward.Reports suggest NWS weather balloons, which assess storm risk by measuring wind speed, humidity, temperature and other conditions that satellites may not detect, have been canceled in recent weeks from Nebraska to Florida due to staff shortages. At the busiest time for storm predictions, deadly heatwaves and wildfires, weather service staffing is down by more than 10% and, for the first time in almost half a century, some forecasting offices no longer have 24/7 cover.Trump’s team is also threatening to slash $1.52bn from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), the weather service’s parent agency, which also monitors climate trends, manages coastal ecosystems and supports international shipping, among other things.“To build an effective and trusted warning system we need hyper-local data, including accurate weather forecasts and a more robust network of gauges,” said Summer Brown, a senior lecturer at the University of Kentucky’s earth and environmental sciences department. “The thought of weakening our basic weather data is mind-boggling.”View image in fullscreenIt’s impossible not to worry about the cuts, especially as the grand plan is to create a southern Appalachian flood and hazard centre to better understand and prepare the entire region’s mountain communities for extreme weather and related hazards, including flash floods, landslides and tornadoes.For this, the team is currently awaiting a multimillion-dollar grant decision from the NSF, in what until recently was a merit-based, peer-reviewed process at the federal agency. The NSF director resigned in April after orders from the White House to accept a 55% cut to the $9bn budget and fire half of its 1,700-person staff. Then in an unprecedented move, a member of the governing body stepped down, lambasting Musk’s unqualified Doge team for interfering in grant decisions.The NSF is the principal federal investor in basic science and engineering, and the proposed cut will be devastating in the US and globally.“Rivers are different all over Appalachia, and if our research continues we can build accurate flood and landslide models that help communities plan for storms in a changing climate,” said Jason Dortch, who set up the flood lab. “We’ve submitted lots of great grant proposals, and while that is out of our hands, we will continue to push forwarded however we can.”Fleming-Neon is a former mining community in Letcher county with around 500 residents – a decline of almost 40% in the past two decades. The town was gutted by the 2022 storm, and only two businesses, a car repair shop and a florist, reopened. The launderette, pharmacy, dentist, clothing store and thrift shop were all abandoned.View image in fullscreenRandall and Bonnie Kincer, a local couple who have been married for 53 years, run the flower shop from an old movie theater on main street, which doubles up as a dance studio for elementary school children. The place was rammed with 120in of muddy water in 2022. In February it was 52in, and everything still reeks of mould.The couple have been convinced by disinformation spread by conspiracy theorists that the recent catastrophic floods across the region, including Helene, were down to inadequate river dredging and cloud seeding. The town’s sorry plight, according to the Kincers, is down to deliberate manipulation of the weather system paid for by mining companies to flood out the community in order to gain access to lithium. (There are no significant lithium deposits in the area.)Bonnie, 74, is on the brink of giving up on the dance classes that she has taught since sophomore year, but not on Trump. “I have total confidence in President Trump. The [federal] cuts will be tough for a little while but there’s a lot of waste, so it will level out,” said Bonnie, who is angry about not qualifying for Fema assistance.View image in fullscreen“We used all our life savings fixing the studio. But I cannot shovel any more mud, not even for the kids. I am done. I have PTSD, we are scared to death,” she said breaking down in tears several times.The fear is understandable. On the slope facing the studio, a tiered retainer wall has been anchored into the hill to stabilize the earth and prevent an avalanche from destroying the town below.And at the edge of town, next to the power station on an old mine site, is a towering pile of black sludgy earth littered with lumps of shiny coal – the remnants of a massive landslide that happened as residents cleaned up after the February storm.Thomas Hutton’s house was swamped with muddy water after the landslide blocked the creek, forcing it to temporarily change course towards a residential street. “The floods have made this a ghost town. I doubt it will survive another one. If you mess with Mother Nature, you lose,” said Hutton, 74, a retired miner.View image in fullscreenThe geologists fly drones fitted with Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) – a remote sensing technology that uses pulsed lasers to create high-res, 3D, color models of the Earth’s surface, and can shoot through trees and man-made structures to detect and monitor changes in terrain including landslides. The affordability and precision of the China-made Lidar has been a “game-changer” for landslides, but prices have recently rocketed thanks to Trump’s tariff war.The Lidar picked up fairly recent deforestation above the Fleming-Neon power plant, which likely further destabilized the earth. The team agrees that the landslide could keep moving, but without good soil data it’s impossible to know when.Last year’s NSF grant funded new soil and moisture sensors, and mini weather stations, which the landslide team is in the process of installing on 14 steep slopes in eastern Kentucky – the first time this has been done – including one opposite Hutton’s house.Back at the lab, the geologists will use the data the sensors send back every 15 minutes to create models – and eventually a website where residents and local emergency managers can see how the soil moisture is changing in real time. The end goal is to warn communities when there is a high landslide risk based on the soil saturation – and rain forecast.“We have taken so many resources from these slopes, we need to understand them better,” said Sarah Johnson, a landslide expert. “We’re not sitting in an ivory tower making money from research. The work we do is about making communities safer.” More

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      How a solar storm could lead to a US nuclear disaster worse than Chornobyl | Mark Leyse

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      On 14 May 1921, a powerful solar storm – called the New York Railroad storm – caused the northern lights to illuminate New York City’s night sky. On Broadway, crowds lingered, enjoying “flaring skies” that remained undimmed by city lights. The following morning, excess electric currents shut down the New York Central Railroad’s signal and switching system in Manhattan, stopping trains. A fire broke out in a railroad control tower that was located at Park Avenue and 57th Street. Smoke filled the air. Along a stretch of Park Avenue, residents “were coughing and choking from the suffocating vapors which spread for blocks”.When a solar storm’s electrically charged particles envelop Earth, they cause geomagnetic storms that generate electric fields in the ground, inducing electric currents in power grids. Solar storms as intense as the 1921 superstorm have the potential to cause a nightmare scenario in which modern power grids, communication systems, and other infrastructures collapse for months. Such a collapse of power grids would likely also lead to nuclear power plant accidents, whose radioactive emissions would aggravate the overall catastrophe.Scientists estimate that solar storms powerful enough to collapse portions of modern power grids for months may hit Earth more often than once in a century. In July 2012, a solar superstorm, estimated to have been more intense than the New York Railroad storm, crossed Earth’s orbit, missing the planet by one week’s time.The east coast states, upper midwest, and Pacific north-west have geological characteristics – not predominant in other regions of the United States – that increase the vulnerability of power-grid infrastructures to solar storms. Unfortunately, the majority of the commercial nuclear power plants in the United States are located in east coast states and the upper midwest, two of the US regions that are most vulnerable to solar storm-induced blackouts.In a months-long blackout, nuclear plants would lose their supply of offsite electricity, which is necessary for their safe operation. Emergency diesel generators, which provide backup electricity, are designed to power cooling pumps for a number of days – not months. No nuclear plant in the United States has ever lost offsite electricity for longer than a week. In 2012, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission stated that an extreme solar storm could collapse power grids and potentially lead to reactor core damage at multiple nuclear plants.Storage pools at nuclear plants that house spent fuel assemblies, encasing nuclear waste, are also vulnerable to accidents. Spent fuel assemblies can overheat and catch fire, dispersing radioactive material into the environment, if a storage pool’s coolant water is lost.Spent fuel assemblies are so thermally hot and radioactive that they must be submerged in circulating water and cooled in a storage pool for years. Storage pools at US nuclear plants typically contain about six reactor core loads of nuclear fuel and are almost as densely packed with fuel assemblies as operating reactors – hazards that vastly increase the odds of a major accident.A spent fuel fire in an exposed, densely packed storage pool could potentially release 10 times as much caesium-137 as the Chornobyl accident is estimated to have released. Such a disaster could contaminate thousands of square miles of land and expose millions of people to large doses of ionizing radiation, many of whom might die from early or latent cancer.By contrast, if a thinly packed storage pool were deprived of coolant water, its spent fuel would likely release about 1% of the radioactive material estimated to be released by a spent fuel fire at a densely packed pool.Sufficiently cooled spent fuel assemblies can be transferred from a storage pool to dry cask storage; that is, passively cooled, liquid-free containers of steel and concrete that shield people from ionizing radiation. The inevitability of a nationwide power grid collapse that would lead to multiple nuclear disasters and untold human suffering emphasizes the need to transfer spent fuel assemblies to dry cask storage as quickly as possible.Promptly transferring the nationwide inventories of spent fuel assemblies that have been cooled for at least five years from US storage pools to dry cask storage would be “relatively inexpensive” – less than a total of $5.5bn. The economic cost of losing vast tracts of urban and rural land for generations to come because of radioactive contamination would be far more expensive.Senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts introduced the Dry Cask Storage Act in 2014, calling to outlaw the practice of overloading spent fuel pools. The act, which Markey has reintroduced in subsequent congressional sessions, has not passed into law. The nuclear industry’s mismanagement of spent fuel must stop. Congress needs to pass legislation requiring the owners of nuclear plants to swiftly thin out spent fuel pools.

      Mark Leyse is a nuclear power safety advocate More

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      Trump signs order to shift disaster preparations from Fema to state and local governments

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      Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order that seeks to shift responsibility for disaster preparations to state and local governments, deepening the president’s drive to overhaul the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema).The order, first previewed by the White House on 10 March, calls for a review of all infrastructure, continuity and preparedness and response policies to update and simplify federal approaches.It said “common sense” investments by state and local governments to address risks ranging from wildfires to hurricanes and cyber attacks would enhance national security, but did not detail what they were or how they would be funded.“Preparedness is most effectively owned and managed at the state, local, and even individual levels, supported by a competent, accessible, and efficient federal government,” the order said. “When states are empowered to make smart infrastructure choices, taxpayers benefit.”The order calls for revising critical infrastructure policy to better reflect assessed risks instead of an “all-hazards approach”, the White House said in a fact sheet on the order.It creates a “National Risk Register” to identify, describe and measure risk to US national infrastructure and streamlines federal functions to help states work with Washington more easily.Trump in January ordered a review of Fema that stopped short of shuttering the country’s lead disaster response agency and a White House official said the latest order was not aimed at closing Fema.Rob Moore, the director of the flooding solutions team at the Natural Resources Defense Council, accused the Trump administration of systematically weakening US disaster readiness.“From day one, the Trump administration has been eroding the nation’s capacity to plan for, respond to, and recover from disasters,” Moore told Reuters.“They’ve overseen the dismissal of 1,000 Fema staff – who won’t be there to respond to a flood or wildfire – and are withholding funding from local and state governments who are doing risk reduction projects and more.“Shana Udvardy, a senior researcher at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said she was concerned the order marked “another dangerous step” that would leave communities with fewer resources to prepare for future disasters.“The executive order shifts most of the responsibility for disaster preparedness to state and local governments, asking them to make more expensive infrastructure investments without outlining the federal role in that,” she said. More

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      US weather forecasts save lives and money. Trump’s cuts put us all at risk

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      Across the United States, from rural communities to coastal cities, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) is an integral part of our daily lives, safeguarding communities and fostering economic vitality.Whether it is tracking the path of hurricanes, managing our nation’s fisheries, providing critical information to air traffic controllers and airlines, or helping farmers plan for weather extremes, Noaa’s science, services and products have a significant impact on every American.Having served as the deputy administrator of Noaa and before that its general counsel, I have witnessed first-hand the indispensable role this agency plays. The Trump administration’s proposed draconian, reckless and, in many cases, unlawful budget and personnel cuts to the agency should alarm us all.These cuts will do little to achieve their stated goal of reducing the size and cost of government. They instead jeopardize the safety, economic prosperity and overall wellbeing of our nation.I should add that the administration’s assault on science is not limited to my former agency. Government-wide cuts are sparking outrage and demonstrations across the country.Each year, Noaa’s National Weather Service (NWS) issues more than 1.5m forecasts and 50,000 weather warnings. By providing critical lead time ahead of hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires and severe storms, Noaa’s forecasts save billions of dollars in economic losses annually and thousands of lives.Noaa’s continuing efforts to improve the accuracy of hurricane track forecasts have reduced the area of uncertainty for coastal evacuations, helping local governments, businesses and families avoid unnecessary costs. A recent study estimated that improvements in forecasting have resulted in an annual per-hurricane cost reduction of $5bn.In the aviation industry, Noaa forecasts and data-monitoring systems help ensure safe and efficient operations. Accurate weather information is essential for planning flight routes, avoiding severe weather and ensuring safe takeoffs and landings. Noaa also tracks weather in space, including solar flares and geomagnetic storms that can disrupt or interfere with technologies essential to safe air travel: satellite communications, GPS navigation and aircraft communication systems.The importance of Noaa’s work extends beyond public safety and economic savings to a range of private-sector applications. Private weather providers such as AccuWeather and the Weather Channel depend on Noaa’s open data to offer localized forecasts, while insurance companies use it to assess risk and set policy rates.The US commercial seafood industry supports roughly 1.7m jobs and generates more than $300bn annually in total sales. Noaa’s fisheries management, research and inspection programs are critical to sustaining these jobs, preserving ecosystems, ensuring robust seafood supplies, and guaranteeing that safe seafood is sold throughout the United States.Additionally, saltwater recreational fishing is a significant economic driver in coastal communities, supporting tens of thousands of jobs and contributing billions annually to local economies. All of this is reliant on well-managed fisheries and healthy marine habitats.Moreover, Noaa marine sanctuaries protect critical habitats, support biodiversity and provide opportunities for research, education and tourism, contributing billions of dollars to local economies. For instance, the Florida Keys national marine sanctuary, one of 18 in the US, is estimated to contribute $4bn annually to Florida’s economy and supports 43,000 jobs.Farmers and ranchers depend on Noaa’s seasonal and sub-seasonal forecasts to make decisions about planting, harvesting, irrigation and risk management. A single drought or flood forecast can mean the difference between profitable harvests and financial ruin.Similarly, the US Department of Transportation reports that more than $5.4tn of commerce crosses US ports annually. Noaa’s nautical charts, tide tables and navigation services are essential for keeping these ports and waterways running safely and efficiently, thereby supporting global trade and local jobs.Furthermore, urban planners and emergency managers at all levels rely on Noaa’s climate data and long-range forecasts and projections to design roads, bridges and flood defenses capable of withstanding rising sea levels and stronger storms. By ensuring that infrastructure investments are based on accurate, up-to-date data, billions of dollars in future repair and disaster costs can be avoided.From safeguarding families in the path of severe storms to supporting the economic health of fishing towns and agricultural communities, Noaa’s programs are indispensable. Efforts by the Trump administration to hobble the agency through budget and wholesale staff reductions are not only misguided but also dangerous. If President Trump and his administration are serious about making America great, they will recognize that funding Noaa is an investment that saves lives, guides critical industries, strengthens our economy and reinforces our nation’s global leadership in innovation and science.

      Terry Garcia served as the assistant secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and as deputy administrator of Noaa. He also served as its general counsel More

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      The hurricanes shaking the US election – podcast

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      In the last few weeks, the United States has been hit by two hurricanes, Helene and Milton. Oliver Milman, an environment reporter for Guardian US, tells Michael Safi: “The rapid analysis found that global heating had caused the rains to be heavier, the winds to be stronger, and in both the cases of Helene and Milton. Storms of this size were made about twice as likely because of the climate crisis.” Why have these storms not put the climate crisis front and centre in the presidential campaign? Oliver tells Michael that the environment is a complicated issue for Democrats, because oil and gas production in the US has hit a record high under Joe Biden’s premiership. Oliver also discusses the disinformation and conspiracy theories that have been spread – in part by Donald Trump – in the aftermath of the hurricanes. Support the Guardian today: theguardian.com/todayinfocuspod More