Researchers Are Resurrecting Billion-Dollar Disaster Tool Trump Killed
Nonprofit Climate Central has hired the scientist behind a key database of costly weather disasters to rebuild it.
A worker with the US Environmental Protection Agency cleaning up after the Palisades Fire in Los Angeles.
Photographer: Roger Kisby/BloombergA climate nonprofit is planning to revive a key federal database tracking billion-dollar weather disasters that the Trump administration formally stopped updating in May.
The database — which was produced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — is set to return this fall as a product of Climate Central. The organization has hired Adam Smith, the former NOAA climatologist who led the disaster tracker for more than a decade, to continue tallying the growing number of storms, droughts and wildfires that cause at least $1 billion in damage.