Climate Change

In the days after Hurricane Irma tore up the center of Florida in September 2017, 14 residents at a South Florida nursing home died after the facility lost power to its air-conditioning system.

Yet more research shows Florida – and especially Jacksonville – has an expensive road ahead in dealing with rising seas.

Jacksonville’s sea level rise work group voted unanimously Friday to expand its boundaries to include areas that have been impacted by flooding in recent hurricanes.

In a call with reporters from across the state on Friday, Florida Chief Science Officer Tom Frazer said he recognizes Florida’s ongoing struggle with harmful algal blooms and will make water quality issues his priority moving forward.

Jacksonville’s storm resiliency committee looks poised to recommend several changes to city development rules that members hope will improve drainage and reduce flooding.

Councilmembers Lori Boyer and Jim Love have filed a bill they hope will better prepare Jacksonville for sea-level rise and flooding.

An international conference on climate change and sea level rise and the threat they pose to historic resources in coastal and river communities is coming to St. Augustine.

In coastal cities like St. Augustine, historic sites are facing modern threats - climate change and sea level rise. Now historians and preservationists are turning to technologies like 3D imaging as they look to protect those cultural resources for future generations.

The City of Atlantic Beach is trying to become Florida’s first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified city under a new U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) pilot program.

More than two months after its first meeting, members of Jacksonville’s Storm Resiliency and Infrastructure Development Review Committee are beginning to spend less time learning and listening and more time putting together proposals they think will help prepare the city for sea level rise and flooding.

Many Democrats in Washington D.C. have come out in support of the Green New Deal, a congressional resolution that lays out a sweeping plan for addressing climate change, but the legislation is facing stiff opposition from some Florida lawmakers.

When Hurricane Irma destroyed the house that Tom Davitt was renting on Jacksonville’s Westside, it also wrecked tens of thousands of dollars worth of his uninsured possessions and forced him to find a new home. “I rolled out of bed because I thought it was my alarm and it was a tornado warning - and I stepped into a foot and a half of water,” the yacht broker said. “I'm basically starting all over at my age, and I'm 56 years old.”

According to a new report from Climate Central and Zillow, 2,659 homes (at a value of $871.9 million) in Duval County are at risk of coastal flooding by the year 2050 under an unchecked pollution scenario and 19,121 ($7.2 billion) could be underwater by 2100.

Jacksonville saw a high of 83 degrees on January 1, 2019 - the city’s hottest New Year’s Day on record.