Any Trump EPA Attempt to Stop Regulating Climate Pollution Won’t Stand up to the Facts

The science on climate change is so indisputably well-established, that it’s hard to see how any court would uphold a challenge to it.


A man fills his car up with gas at a Brooklyn station in New York City.
(Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Rachel Cleetus
Apr 13, 2025

Union of Concerned Scientists/Blog

In a blitz of destructive actions announced by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin last month, he specifically called for a reconsideration of the 2009 Endangerment Finding. A formal proposal for reconsideration of the finding (and all the agency regulations and actions that depend on it) is expected this month.

The science underpinning the Endangerment Finding is airtight, but that won’t stop the Trump administration from setting up a rigged process to try to undo it and give a blank check to polluters. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) will fight back to defend climate science and protect public health safeguards.

In an earlier post, I laid out some of the history and context for the 2009 science-backed Endangerment Finding and the Cause or Contribute Finding. These findings followed from the landmark 2007 Mass v. EPA Supreme Court ruling which held that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are unambiguously air pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act. Together, these establish the clear basis for EPA’s authority and responsibility to set pollutions limits for heat-trapping emissions from vehicles, power plants, and other sources of these pollutants, under the Clean Air Act.

There is nothing mysterious about the heat-trapping attributes of greenhouse gases, nor their impact on public health. It’s called science.

Attacks on the Endangerment Finding and EPA’s Clean Air Act authority from industry interests are nothing new. Importantly, courts have repeatedly upheld both, including in a resounding 2012 decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals–D.C. Circuit in Citizens for Responsible Regulation v. EPA. But those who have long sought to overturn or weaken regulations to limit heat-trapping emissions now have Administrator Zeldin in their corner. And he has shown himself to be an unbridled purveyor of disinformation and proponent of harmful attacks on bedrock public health protections, as my colleague Julie McNamara highlights.

The details of what will be included in the reconsideration proposal are unclear at this point. But we do know some of the trumped-up lines of attack the Zeldin EPA could advance to try to invalidate these findings because many of these tired arguments are outlined in EPA’s reconsideration announcement.

Here are the facts:

Fact No. 1: The Science Backing the Endangerment Finding Is Beyond Dispute

Every major scientific society endorses the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change driven by GHG emissions. The Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5) and the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report are two major recent authoritative summaries of peer-reviewed climate science, which show that the science on climate change has only become more dire and compelling since 2009.

The impacts of climate change on human health are also starkly clear and backed by overwhelming evidence. Here’s the main finding from the NCA5 chapter on public health, for instance:
Climate change is harming physical, mental, spiritual, and community health through the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme events, higher incidences of infectious and vector-borne diseases, and declines in food and water security. These impacts worsen social inequities. Emissions reductions, effective adaptation measures, and climate-resilient health systems can protect human health and improve health equity.

As just one example, climate change is contributing to worsening extreme heat, which exerts a punishing toll on people’s health, including that of outdoor workers. Heat is already the leading cause of extreme weather-related deaths in the United States, and studies show that heat-related mortality is on the rise.

Looking around the nation, with communities reeling from extreme heatwaves, intensified hurricanes, catastrophic wildfires, and record flooding, climate impacts are the lived reality of all too many people. To deny that or obfuscate about the underlying causes is not only disingenuous, but actively harmful and outright cruel.
Fact No. 2: The Law Requires an Independent Scientific Determination of Endangerment, Unhindered by Cost Considerations

A Finding of Endangerment under the Clean Air Act is specifically focused on a threshold scientific determination of whether the pollutant under consideration harms public health or welfare. Costs to industry of meeting any subsequent regulations are not relevant per the statute.

The original Endangerment Finding was reached in the context of the vehicle emissions, per section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act, partially excerpted below:
The administrator shall by regulation prescribe (and from time to time revise) in accordance with the provisions of this section, standards applicable to the emission of any air pollutant from any class or classes of new motor vehicles or new motor vehicle engines, which in his judgment cause, or contribute to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.

In its 2012 decision, the D.C. Circuit was also clear is noting that “By employing the verb ‘shall,’ Congress vested a non-discretionary duty in EPA.” That duty is not circumscribed by cost considerations.

Of course, the impacts of climate change are themselves incredibly costly and those costs are mounting as heat-trapping emissions rise. Unsurprisingly, the social cost of greenhouse gases, a science-based estimate of those costs, is another metric that the Trump EPA is seeking to undermine in yet another blatant attempt to put a thumb on the scale in favor of polluting industries.

Fact No. 3: EPA Used Well-Established Methodologies in Its Assessment of Six GHGs

As noted in the 2009 Endangerment Finding, the EPA defined the pollutant contributing to climate change as “the aggregate group of the well-mixed greenhouse gases” with similar attributes. The attributes include that they are sufficiently long-lived, directly emitted, contribute to climate warming, and are a focus of science and policy.

The EPA used a very well-established scientific methodology to combine emissions of GHGs on the basis of their heat-trapping potential, measured in carbon-dioxide equivalents. In the case of passenger cars, light- and heavy-duty trucks, buses, and motorcycles—the transportation sources EPA considered for the original Endangerment Finding—they emitted four key greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and hydrofluorocarbons.

False, glib claims in the reconsideration announcement baselessly accuse the 2009 Endangerment Finding of making “creative leaps” and “mysterious” choices. There is nothing mysterious about the heat-trapping attributes of greenhouse gases, nor their impact on public health. It’s called science. Once again, relying on the mountain of evidence in the peer-reviewed scientific literature would make that readily apparent.

Fact No. 4: EPA Has the Responsibility and Authority to Regulate Major Sources of GHGs

The Cause or Contribute Finding—which specifically established that greenhouse gas emissions from new vehicles contribute to the pollution that harms public health—may also come under attack. This finding has been extended to other major sources of GHGs, including power plants and oil and gas operations. However, the Trump administration could attempt to use accounting tricks to avoid regulating emissions—as it has tried before.

In its first term, the administration attempted multiple underhanded maneuvers along these lines, including in the context of methane and volatile organic compound regulations in the oil and gas sector. For these regulations, the administration split up segments of the source category, designated them as separate source categories, used that manipulation to claim inability to regulate certain segments, and asserted that methane emissions from the remaining segments were too small and regulating them would not provide additional benefits, so those too could not be regulated. Separately, in the final days of the administration, EPA released an absurd framework attempting to set thresholds for determining “significance,” trialed in the context of power plants.

This irrational approach could be used to artificially segment components of power plants or the power system, for example, and then claim no regulations are required. This kind of rigged math wouldn’t fool a kindergarten child, but there’s no telling where this administration might go in its desperate attempt to undo or weaken regulations on greenhouse gas emissions.

Zeldin’s Relentless Subversion of EPA’s Mission

Under Administrator Zeldin, EPA’s mission to protect public health and the environment has been completely subverted. His shocking rhetoric lays bare how far he will go to protect polluters at the expense of the public. Here he is, for instance, crowing about going after 31+ EPA regulations and guidance, as well as the enforcement of pollution standards meant to protect all of us:
Today is the greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen. We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion…

EPA even set up an email address for polluters to send an email to get a presidential exemption from complying with regulations on toxic pollution, such as mercury emissions, regulated under the Clean Air Act!

Zeldin is fervently committed to dismantling public health protections and rolling back enforcement of existing laws passed by Congress. Going after the Endangerment Finding is an integral part of this all-out assault because, in the Trump administration’s harmful calculation, revoking the finding is a potential means to rolling back all the regulations that depend on it.

Ironically, some utilities and oil and gas companies have spoken out in favor of keeping the finding intact, as they fear a greater risk of climate damages lawsuits in the absence of EPA authority to regulate greenhouse gases. Of course, this just exposes that they know their products are causing damage. What they seek is the weakest possible exercise of EPA authority so they can continue to reap profits while evading accountability for those harms.

We Can Fight Back With Science

But none of this is a foregone conclusion. The legal and scientific basis for the Endangerment Finding is incredibly strong. The false claims Zeldin and other opponents have trotted out are full of bombast but weak on substance.

The science on climate change is so indisputably well-established, that it’s hard to see how any court would uphold a challenge to it. That’s not to say Zeldin won’t try to find a cabal of fringe “scientists” to try to attack it, but they’re unlikely to succeed on the merits.

Public comments on the proposal to reconsider the Endangerment Finding can help set the record straight on facts. And if the Zeldin EPA ignores them and finalizes a sham finding or revokes the finding with a faulty rationale, that will be challenged in court.

UCS will be closely following the details of EPA’s proposal to reconsider the Endangerment Finding when it is released. And we will let you know how you can add your voice to bolster this crucial science-based finding, and the public health protections that flow from it. So, stay tuned!


© 2023 Union of Concerned Scientists

Rachel Cleetus  is the policy director with the Climate and Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
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Emergency Forest Cutting Will Exacerbate Wildfires

George Wuerthner

 April 11, 2025
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Logging site in the Oregon Coast Range. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

On April 3^rd, the Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, issued an Emergency Order (EO) to accelerate logging on national forest lands. The alleged emergency is the presumed increase in wildfires across the West.

Unfortunately, most of the rationales for this “emergency” are based on flawed assumptions about “active” management (better known as logging) and the purported increase in wildfires.

The EO states that: “National Forests are in crisis due to uncharacteristically severe wildfires, insect and disease outbreaks, invasive species, and other stressors whose impacts have been compounded by too little active management.”

Despite recent years of significant wildfires, the overall acreage charred is less than in historical conditions. To quote from one recent study:

“Our results indicate, despite increasing area burned in recent decades, that a widespread fire deficit persists across a range of forest types and recent years with exceptionally high area burned are not unprecedented when considering the multi-century perspective offered by fire-scarred trees.”

The Secretary gets away with such misleading assertions by using a concept known as a sliding baseline. If you were to compare the acres of high-severity fires with those of the 1970s, they would have increased. However, this overlooks the fact that between 1940 and 1988, the overall climate of the West was cooler and moister.

What happens if the climate is cooler and moister? You have fewer ignitions and less fire spread.

However, if you look back further in the fire record than the 1970s, you will find that during periods of drought, the acreage burned by wildfires is significantly higher. During the “Dust Bowl” years of the late 1920s-early 1930s, as many as 50 million acres were burned across the West.

We are currently experiencing extreme weather characterized by high temperatures and severe drought, primarily attributed to human-induced carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Climate is the controlling factor in increases in wildfires and insects, such as bark beetles. To quote from the above study: “wildfire area burned (WFAB) in the American West was controlled by climate during the 20th century (1916–2003).”

Furthermore, rather than compounding fire severity and insect outbreaks, as claimed by the Secretary, active management, particularly logging, compounds the influence of climate change.

For example, a review study examining 1,500 wildfires found that the percentage of high-severity fires was highest in areas with “active management. “In contrast, lands where logging and other active management practices are excluded, such as wilderness areas and national parks, had lower levels of high-severity burns.

There is a reasonable explanation for these findings. When you log the forest, the canopy opens to greater sun dries soils and surface fuels. This means trees suffer from what is essentially dehydration and are far more flammable.

Thinning the forest also allows for greater wind penetration. High winds accounted for rapid fire spread. High winds, in particular, can throw embers over or around any “fuel reductions,” essentially making thinning or prescribed fires ineffective.

And while the Secretary suggests that invasive species are problematic, he neglects to mention that logging roads are one of the primary vectors for spreading weeds and disease into the forest.

When all is said and done, the best way to protect our national forests is not to promote “active management” but to reduce it.

Our forests have existed for millions of years, long before humans colonized the continent to manage them. And one has to presume that if they survived for tens of millions of years without human intervention, they certainly don’t need any now.

George Wuerthner has published 36 books including Wildfire: A Century of Failed Forest Policy

 

Smoke from US wildfires, prescribed burns caused premature deaths, billions in health damages

Elderly, Native Americans, and Black communities suffered greatest harms

Carnegie Mellon University

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Since the end of the 20th century, air pollution from most U.S. sources has decreased, but emissions from wildland fires have risen. In a new study, researchers estimated that smoke from wildfires and prescribed burns caused $200 billion in health damages in 2017, and that these were associated with 20,000 premature deaths. Senior citizens were harmed the most, and Native American and Black communities experienced the greatest damages per capita.

The study, by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business, appears in Communications Earth & Environment.

“Many studies have found that fire smoke, like other air pollutants, is associated with increased morbidity and mortality risk,” explained Nicholas Muller

, CMU's Lester and Judith Lave Professor of Economics, Engineering and Public Policy, who coauthored the study. “But until recently, the associated social costs were less well understood.”

Fires produce ammonia, nitrogen oxides, primary fine particulate matter (PM2.5), sulfur dioxide and volatile organic compounds, all of which contribute to concentrations of ambient PM2.5. Any level of long-term exposure to PM2.5 is statistically associated with increased risk of mortality. Hence, in addition to the costs associated with fires themselves (e.g., flame-related injuries or deaths, property damage), substantial costs are associated with exposure to the resulting smoke. Similar pollution risks come from prescribed burns, which are used widely to mitigate wildfire risks.

In this study, researchers used an integrated assessment model to investigate the damages caused by ambient PM2.5 from smoke from wildfires and prescribed burns in census tracts across the contiguous United States in 2017.

Damages from fire smoke in 2017 amounted to more than $200 billion (17% of the total across all emission sources in the contiguous United States). The monetary damages are from approximately 20,000 premature deaths; roughly half were due to wildfire smoke and half were due to prescribed burns. In addition, the study found that:

• Nearly half of the damage came from wildfires, predominantly in the West, with the remainder from prescribed burns, mostly in the Southeast.
• Exposure to smoke correlated positively with various measures of social vulnerability, but when also considering susceptibility to smoke, these disparities were systematically influenced by age.
• Senior citizens, who are disproportionately white, represented 16% of the population but incurred 75% of the damages.
• Nonetheless, within most age groups, Native American and Black communities experienced the greatest damages per capita.

“Our work reveals the extraordinary and disproportionate effects of the growing threat of fire smoke,” said Luke Dennin

, a Ph.D. student in engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon, who led the study. “We also provide suggestions for local, state and national decision-makers and planners addressing the growing environmental hazard of fire smoke, particularly its impact on vulnerable communities.” Among their suggestions:

• Expanding real-time air quality monitoring and enhancing public outreach — particularly through trusted community leaders — in smoke-prone areas could better inform vulnerable and historically marginalized groups on how to adapt.
• Because indoor air quality also deteriorates during smoke events, investing in filtration technologies could establish clean air spaces in locations strategically targeted to vulnerable populations and accessible to the public, such as senior centers in lower-income neighborhoods.
• Distributing respiratory protection, such as N95 masks, through well-coordinated systems before or during smoke events could help safeguard populations with limited access to safe indoor spaces, including outdoor workers.

The study was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory and KeyLogic, by the National Science Foundation, and by the Heinz Endowments.

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Journal

Communications Earth & Environment

DOI

10.1038/s43247-025-02100-y 

Article Title

Socially vulnerable communities face disproportionate exposure and susceptibility to U.S. wildfire and prescribed burn smoke

 

New study suggests that simultaneously burying broadband and electricity could be worth millions to people in MA towns

Modeling data shows that upfront investments in co-undergrounding wires, particularly in outage-prone areas, can pay off

University of Massachusetts Amherst

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April 8, 2025 

AMHERST, Mass. — When it comes to upgrading electrical and broadband infrastructure, new research from the University of Massachusetts Amherst shows that a “dig once” approach is nearly 40% more cost effective than replacing them separately. The study also found that the greatest benefit comes from proactively undergrounding lines that are currently above ground, even if lines haven’t reached the end of their usefulness.  

 

Co-undergrounding is the practice of burying both electric and broadband internet lines together. “One main benefit from undergrounding both electric and broadband together for us was cost saving that we can have from co-deployment of those utility lines,” says Mahsa Arabi, lead study author and an ELEVATE research fellow in the UMass Amherst Energy Transition Institute (ETI). This cost savings makes it feasible for even smaller towns in Massachusetts to make undergrounding upgrades. Using computational modeling across a variety of infrastructure upgrade scenarios, the researchers found that co-undergrounding is 39% more cost-effective than separately burying electrical and broadband wires.  

 

One of the study authors, Erin Baker, faculty director of ETI and distinguished professor in the College of Engineering at UMass Amherst, explains that co-undergrounding wires is becoming more salient to decision makers who are focusing on the efficiency of infrastructure. “Instead of tearing up the road to do this and then a year later tear it up to do that, let’s think about doing it together,” she says. 

 

The researchers also asked: how aggressively should towns pivot to putting lines underground? Should they wait until lines have reached the end of their lifespan and then replace as needed, or proactively move forward? 

 

To answer this, the researchers defined three overarching considerations: the cost of converting lines from above ground to underground, the cost of outages and the hours of outages that can be avoided if lines are underground.  

 

To quantify these factors, the researchers created a nuanced computational model. “A big driver of this whole thing is the cost,” adds Jimi Oke, director of NARS Lab, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering and principal investigator of the study. “In previous studies, people just used estimates based on average values, but we essentially try to model the dependency of the cost on things like the soil composition, the network type or the other land use variables,” he says. 

 

Using the town of Shrewsbury, Massachusetts as a case study, the team found that the most cost-effective solution is to be aggressively proactive in co-undergrounding and replacing existing infrastructure, as long as it can be confirmed that undergrounding wires reduces outages by at least 50%. 

 

Over 40 years, the cost of an aggressive co-undergrounding strategy in Shrewsbury would be $45.4 million, but the benefit from avoiding outages is $55.1 million. This considers factors like spoiled food, damaged home appliances, missed remote work hours and increased use of backup power sources. For a power outage, the costs are estimated to be $10 per person per hour, $205 per business per hour and $15,000 per industrial customer per hour. In Massachusetts, the average outage duration per customer per year, for both broadband and electricity, is estimated to be 1.38 hours. The researchers also took into consideration an additional benefit of $1.5 million in increased property values from the aesthetic improvement of eliminating overhead lines. 

 

Altogether, this created a net benefit of $11.3 million. 

 

The strategy with the second-highest net benefit was to aggressively convert just the electrical wires from above ground to underground. While this is a less expensive strategy, the savings were notably diminished, for a net benefit that was five times lower than the co-undergrounding strategy. All other strategies, including moderately paced conversions, had a negative net benefit. 

 

One of the biggest remaining question marks is determining exactly how many outages will be prevented by undergrounding. “There’s kind of an intuitive thing [that undergrounding will reduce outages], but there is kind of mixed information about exactly how much because there are outages for a lot of different reasons,” explains Baker. “It means for [undergrounding to be worthwhile] half the outages have to be caused by basically something weather induced. If more than half of your outages are caused by the plant breaking down, then you shouldn’t underground anything. But the moment it flips over and it becomes good enough to do something, it means you want to be fully aggressive.” 

 

Storms aren’t the only causes of outages, says Oke, pointing to California wildfires. California utilities will institute planned outages in order to prevent additional fires, but putting wires underground could prevent the initial fire (and therefore the outage). Consider the 2018 Camp Fire in Northern California—the most destructive wildfire in the state's history. This fire was caused when a worn-out metal hook on a transmission tower failed, allowing a live line to fall and hit a transmission tower. 

 

“We need to have a framework and a set of regulations that encourages utilities and towns to think strategically,” says Baker. She hopes that their findings can help decision makers do just this. 

 

The team hopes that future research will quantify the impacts of co-undergrounding across a variety of geographic locations and scenarios. Other relevant future directions include investigating alternative underground routing options, and other potential outage mitigation strategies.

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Journal

Cell Reports Sustainability

DOI

10.1016/j.crsus.2025.100334 

Method of Research

Computational simulation/modeling

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Benefits of aggressively co-undergrounding electric and broadband lines outweigh costs

 

AMS science preview: Fire weather, bumpy hurricane flights, climate extremes and protests

Early online research from journals of the American Meteorological Society

American Meteorological Society

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The American Meteorological Society continuously publishes research on climate, weather, and water in its 12 journals. Many of these articles are available for early online access–they are peer-reviewed, but not yet in their final published form. Below are some recent examples.

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JOURNAL ARTICLES

Multi-factor Change in Western U.S. Nighttime Fire Weather
Journal of Climate

Western fires become less prone to “lay down” at night. Wildfires typically calm down at night–a crucial break for firefighters–yet firefighter and satellite measurements confirm increased nocturnal fire activity in the western U.S. from 1980 to 2020. This study shows increases in meteorological variables conducive to nocturnal fire. Extremely dry nights (low water vapor) have increased over 75% of the study area–in some places 10- to 12-fold. Across 81% of the study area, the authors find increases in nights where drier air combines with windier weather or other dangerous factors.

Spatiotemporal Analyses of Lightning and Tornado Exposure to Large Outdoor Gatherings in the Conterminous United States
Weather, Climate, and Society

Baseball, amusement parks, and severe weather. A study of potential human exposure to lightning and tornadoes for United States large outdoor public gatherings found that amusement parks, Major League Baseball games, and state fairs during March-August have the greatest potential exposure to lightning and tornadoes overall. The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival topped the list for lightning exposure, while Coors Field in Denver (in June) and Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington (in April) had the highest likelihood of tornado exposure.

Bridging the Gap Between National Weather Service Heat Terminology and Public Understanding
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

Heat index and warning terms may still lack clarity with the public. A small survey found that most respondents’ understanding of heat-related terminology does not match National Weather Service definitions. Almost half of participants said that “heat index” was synonymous with air temperature (less than 10% understood that heat index includes humidity) and many did not fully understand the terms Excessive Heat Watch, Heat Advisory, and Excessive Heat Warning. The authors recommend exploring plain language messaging alternatives.

What was the Bumpiest Flight Ever on NOAA’s WP-3D Hurricane Hunter Aircraft?
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

Extreme turbulence on hurricane flights leads to new scientific “bumpiness” metric. Motivated by their newsworthy experience during a Hurricane Hunter mission into Hurricane Ian (2022), the authors develop a novel “bumpiness index” to objectively quantify three-dimensional turbulence felt aboard NOAA’s WP-3D Orion Hurricane Hunter aircraft missions. The Hurricane Ian flight was found to be the second bumpiest on record, with a flight into Hurricane Hugo (1989) taking the prize for “bumpiest ever.”

The Changes in Heating and Cooling Energy Demand in Beijing and Shanghai under Global Warming
Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology

Energy demand for heating and cooling is shifting in Chinese megacities. From 1961 to 2020, winter heating demand decreased and summer cooling energy demand increased in China’s Beijing and Shanghai megacities. While the reduction in energy used for heating during winter currently outweighs the increase in energy demand for summer cooling, summertime energy demand is more sensitive to temperature overall. As global warming continues, this implies that the summertime energy draw will outpace reductions in winter energy demand.

Impacts of Irrigated and Non-irrigated Land Use on Convective Environments and Related Diagnostic Variables During GRAINEX in Nebraska, USA
Journal of Hydrometeorology

Irrigation may favor storm development on the Great Plains. Data from the Great Plains Irrigation Experiment (GRAINEX) in Nebraska comparing large irrigated areas with non-irrigated grassland and transitional areas suggest that irrigated areas display atmospheric conditions considered more favorable to the formation of convective storms.

Earth, Wind and Fire: Are Boulder’s Extreme Downslope Winds Changing?
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

Extreme winds sputtering in Boulder. Throughout the mid-late 20th century, the NSF NCAR Mesa Lab occasionally measured 120+ mph wind gusts in the Boulder, CO, area. Yet after 1995, peak recorded wind gusts almost never approached 100 mph. The authors examine this apparent reduction in peak wind events, and find that it is likely real, perhaps due to increased local temperatures. Stricter building codes and increased tree growth in the area may also contribute to reduced wind damage.

Lightning Fatalities in Europe (2001–2020)
Weather, Climate, and Society

European lightning deaths skew toward males, teens, and SE Europe. A study of 1,282 lightning fatalities recorded in the European Severe Weather Database (ESWD) over 2001-2020 found the greatest share of deaths in southeastern Europe (especially Bulgaria). 77.8% of those killed by lightning were male, with a spike around age 15. Lightning deaths on the job were most common among farm workers; hikers topped the list of those who died during leisure activities.

Climate Extremes and Protests in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, 1995-2013
Weather, Climate, and Society

Social unrest is strongly correlated with climate extremes in India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. A study combining media-reported protests with satellite data on climate conditions vs local averages found that heavy rains and high temperatures are strongly, positively associated with protest activity. Protests are also strongly, positively associated with abnormally wet or dry spells over longer time periods, with a delayed effect, suggesting long-term social and political impacts of drought and heavy rain.

Impact Matters: Detection and Early Warning of Agriculturally Impactful Flash Droughts
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

Warning farmers of flash drought. How exactly to define a rapid-onset (flash) drought is still up for debate, with many methods attempting to diagnose and monitor them–yet all lack a direct connection to agricultural impact. A new flash drought indicator, based on soil water deficit (scarcity of water available in the soil for plants) has proven useful for early detection of agriculturally impactful flash droughts.

Modeling the Predictors of Extreme Weather Affective Experience and its Influence on Extreme Weather Decision Making
Weather, Climate, and Society

Positive “extreme weather affect” related to tornado readiness. Analysis of survey responses about extreme weather found that respondents who described their feelings about extreme weather positively–conveying that they were interested, alert, attentive, or active in response to severe weather warnings–rated significantly higher on tornado preparedness. Those with a negative severe weather “affect” were significantly less likely to be prepared for a tornado.

You can view all research published in AMS Journals at journals.ametsoc.org.

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About the American Meteorological Society

The American Meteorological Society advances the atmospheric and related sciences, technologies, applications, and services for the benefit of society. Founded in 1919, AMS has a membership of around 12,000 professionals, students, and weather enthusiasts. AMS publishes 12 atmospheric and related oceanic and hydrologic science journals; hosts more than 12 conferences annually; and offers numerous programs and services. Visit us at www.ametsoc.org/.

About AMS Journals

The American Meteorological Society continuously publishes research on climate, weather, and water in its 12 journals. Some AMS journals are open access. Media login credentials are available for subscription journals. Journals include the Bulletin of the American Meteorolocial Society, Weather, Climate, and Society, the Journal of Climate, and Monthly Weather Review.