As wildfires, droughts and floods continue to hit parts of the U.S., the Biden administration launched a new tool on Thursday to help communities prepare for severe weather.
The Climate Map Portal for Resilience and Adaptation is an online dashboard that provides real-time, location-specific information on extreme weather risks. It features an interactive map that provides hazard-specific information, such as how many crews are responding to a particular wildfire or what flood warnings have been issued in a particular community.
Created in partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Department of the Interior, the website shares forecasts of future weather risks. With the portal’s assessment tool, users can log into specific states, tribal lands or census tracts to find out what climate hazards will look like in the coming decades to 2099.
In addition to climate data, the portal identifies disadvantaged communities that may qualify for programs like Biden’s Justice40 Initiative, which aims to direct federal resources to areas disproportionately affected by climate change and other environmental problems.
“We want to build a science-based portal that brings together the best information on the impacts communities have experienced historically, what’s happening now and, perhaps most importantly, what the future holds,” said David Hayes, special assistant. For the climate policy of the president, during a press conference on Thursday.
From a heat wave in California to flooding in Kentucky to a drought in New England, severe weather has devastated communities this winter. And as global temperatures continue to rise, those threats are expected to become more severe and frequent, experts said.
Since 1980, NOAA has tracked climate and weather disasters that have caused more than $1 billion in damage or loss. Since then, the number of these events has quadrupled.
In the year In the 1980s, an average of three disasters totaled more than $1 billion each year, with annual costs of about $20 billion, NOAA Administrator Rick Spirad explained. In the year In the 2010s, that jumped to 13 disasters at an average annual cost of $92 billion.
The new portal, also called CMRA (pronounced “Camera”), goes beyond information to share information about federal funding opportunities, case studies of how communities are managing climate disasters, and other federal policies.
CMRA is developed by software company Esri. Funding for the project comes from an infrastructure law signed last year by Bayan, the company said.
At a press conference Thursday, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego described some of the weather the city has faced since she was elected in 2019, including extreme heat and flooding.
“It’s really helpful to have a tool like the CMRA where we can access all the best scientific information,” Gallego said.
While the CMRA provides an overview of many hazards, the federal government has other online tools, such as Heat.gov and Drought.gov, that provide more in-depth information about specific threats, Hayes said.
