National

Ominous forecasts about the impact of climate change serve as the backdrop for the world — led by U.S. lawmakers and companies — to debate big action on the problem, which could upend energy systems and our way of life.

Energy & Environment

After 230 whales were found washed up on Tasmania's west coast early Wednesday, only 35 remained alive after waves took a toll on the animals, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports.

The latest: Rescue efforts were continuing in the island state, located off the Australian mainland's southeast coast, on Thursday afternoon local time.

The primary focus was on the rescue and release of the 35 surviving animals, the Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service told AP.

The big picture: The whales were found at Ocean Beach in Macquarie Harbour, which has a  dangerous entrance known as Hell's Gate.

This is the second mass whale stranding in two days, after 14 dead sperm whales were found beached earlier this week, per AP.

What they're saying: "Marine conservation experts from the Department of Natural Resources and Environment are responding," the Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service said when the whales were first found.

Whales beached in Australia along Tasmania's west coast on Sept. 21. Photo: Huon Aquaculture/Getty Images

Flashback: Tasmania's largest mass whale stranding took place exactly two years ago, when about 470 long-finned pilot whales were stranded on sandbars in a harbor. About 111 whales were rescued, but the remaining died.

Rescuers try to save a beached whale in Macquarie Harbour on Sept. 25, 2020. Photo: Mell Chun/AFP via Getty Images

Editor's note: This article has been updated to reflect that most of the stranded whales died and with more details on rescue efforts. 

This story has also been corrected to reflect Tasmania is located southeast of Australia, not southwest.

Most of 230 whales stranded on beach in Tasmania die

This is the second mass whale stranding in two days reported on the island.

An aerial view of the mass whale stranding on Tasmania's west coast on Sept. 21. Photo: NRE Tas/Getty Images

Wildlife

Experts are torn after two deadly mass whale strandings in Tasmania this week made international headlines, but some have floated theories for why the incidents happened.

The big picture: The Tasmanian Department of Natural Resources and Environment said in a statement that it "will assess the scene and the situation to plan an appropriate response." It response has been guided by a manual that's undergone revision since Tasmania's largest-ever mass whale stranding in 2020.

"Whale strandings are a complete mystery," marine expert Vanessa Pirotta told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, "but what's really unusual here is that this is the second stranding for this week."

Details: Most of the 230 whales stranded on a beach in Tasmania this week have died, days after 14 dead sperm whales were found beached.

State of play: The ABC reports a few common theories for why these incidents happen:

Misnavigation: "So one could be misnavigation," ABC's marine expert Vanessa Pirotta said, adding environmental factors could also potentially come into it.

Herding: The fact that pilot whales are "herd species" could be a contributing factor, according to retired veterinarian David Obendorf, who previously worked with the Tasmanian environment department. 

The calendar: "There are certain times of the year, and locations, that are prone to having a frequency of whale trappings," Obendorf told ABC. 

Geography: The beach topography and tidal conditions could make an environment more susceptible to strandings, Obendorf added. If whales are unable to use their echolocation, they can't navigate deeper water and get embedded in the sand, which ultimately can lead to drowning.

Another expert agreed that Tasmania's topography makes it somewhat of a "whale trap" since the coast is close to the shelf edge where it drops off.

"Complete mystery": Experts baffled after back-to-back strandings killed hundreds of whales

Experts say there are a few common theories for why these mass whale strandings keep happening.

Rescuers release a stranded pilot whale back into the ocean at Macquarie Heads on the west coast of Tasmania on Sept. 22. Photo: Glenn Nicholls/AFP via Getty Images

Rescue crews in Puerto Rico struggle to reach residents cut off by Fiona

FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell visited areas in Puerto Rico affected by the deadly storm today.

Firefighters from the DOE Barceloneta carried rescue a 91-year-old woman who was trapped in her home after a flood.

Barceloneta, Puerto Rico, firefighters rescue a 91-year-old woman on Tuesday after flooding from Hurricane Fiona. Photo: Puerto Rico Firefighters Corps/Twitter

Puerto Rico

Extreme weather

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Politics & Policy

Five years after the devastation of Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico is reeling from Hurricane Fiona, which unleashed heavy rains, winds and mudslides on the island and left most households without electricity or access to running water.

The big picture: Black and Latino communities in the U.S. have long been burdened by the disproportionate impacts of climate change. Fiona is no exception.

Driving the news: Puerto Rico still hasn’t fully recovered from 2017's Hurricane Maria, which resulted in thousands of deaths and the longest power outage in U.S. history, an Associated Press investigation found.

Now, the island is grappling with what Gov. Pedro Pierluisi calls Fiona’s "catastrophic" damage to its vulnerable infrastructure. Depending on the federal response, the next steps could mitigate existing racial and socioeconomic disparities — or exacerbate them. 

The backstory: Federal disaster relief has long fallen short in measures of equity. Research demonstrates that unequal recovery efforts following extreme disaster events have contributed to lasting racial and social divides.

For starters, communities of color are less likely to receive disaster relief aid, especially when compared to white, affluent households, and the communities they live in, according to FEMA's 2020 National Advisory Council report. 

And a 2018 study published in a journal for the American Sociological Association found that race-based wealth inequality increases with the cost of damages from natural hazards.

The study found that the way FEMA funding was being administered to counties experiencing hazards led to white residents increasing wealth, while Black, Latino and Asian populations lost it. 

Plus, it's most likely to be wealthy white residents — not residents of color — who relocate to less hazard-prone areas after a hurricane, according to a 2016 study examining the impacts of hurricanes on population change in the Gulf Coast between 1970 and 2005.

Hurricanes leave lasting scars by disrupting public health and health care delivery, according to Carlos Rodríguez-Díaz, a public health scientist and associate professor at George Washington University. 

Hospitals shut down, and patients’ care is halted by power outages — a key issue in Puerto Rico following Maria.

There are also dire shortages of medical supplies like saline solution, as well as damage to infrastructure like water and sewage systems — all of which deepens pre-existing health care inequities.

These compound with existing threats, like air pollution, which communities of color are most exposed to due to historic discriminatory practices like redlining and exclusionary housing policies.

Between the lines: Having led on-the-ground research on the aftermath of Maria and its predecessor Irma, and being Puerto Rican himself, Rodríguez-Díaz sees the heavily criticized Trump administration’s response — and the ensuing health care crisis — as a product of systemic racism and the island’s colonization. 

He compares Maria with a nearly simultaneous disaster response to Hurricane Harvey in Texas, which a Politico investigation revealed led to a "faster, and initially, greater" response effort, despite the significantly larger demand and scale of damage in Puerto Rico. 

“How are we going to... [provide] the resources to communities that are living in disaster-prone areas to have options, to live elsewhere without displacement?” Rodríguez-Díaz asked in an interview with Axios. 

Flashback: In 2015, 10 years after Hurricane Katrina, 90% of New Orleans residents had returned — but only 37% of residents from the Lower 9th Ward, a predominantly Black neighborhood, had come back, the liberal Center for American Progress noted in a report. 

Following the storm, Black survivors of Katrina more frequently reported problems with finances, physical and mental health than white survivors, according to the Journal of Black Studies.   

What they’re saying: “People of color and people from low-wealth households don't get the ability to recover, especially if they're in spaces that are constantly faced with disasters,” Cassandra Davis of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill tells Axios.

Davis is currently working with FEMA — through funding from the Department of Homeland Security — on a project examining inequitable distribution of disaster aid. “As we think about recovery, short and long term, they're more likely to be left behind.” 

What we’re watching: By continuing to acknowledge social injustice and focusing on who is being left out of relief — which FEMA addressed in a report earlier this year — pressing gaps in disaster recovery can be filled, according to Davis.

As a first step, Davis hopes that begins with the U.S. emergency response to Fiona. 

The unequal toll of climate disasters

Hurricane Fiona is a reminder that unequal recovery efforts contribute to lasting racial and social divides.

Photo illustration of various people, abstract shapes, plywood texture, and torn paper that resembles a wave.

Photo illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios. Photos: Hector Retamal/AFP, Lionel Chamoiseau/AFP via Getty Images

Climate change

Hurricane Fiona strengthened into a Category 4 storm, with maximum sustained winds of 130mph, as it moved away from the Turks and Caicos Islands toward Bermuda on Wednesday morning, per the National Hurricane Center.

The big picture: The storm, which has been linked to at least two deaths in Puerto Rico and another in the Dominican Republic, on Tuesday morning became the first major hurricane of the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season. 

It knocked out power to hundreds of thousands in the Dominican Republic and the entire island of Puerto Rico earlier this week. Nearly 1.7 million residents were still without power on Tuesday night, according to poweroutage.us.

What to expect: Fiona was forecast to continue tracking north on Wednesday before turning toward the north-northeast with "an increase in forward speed" expected by Thursday, according to a National Hurricane Center advisory issued at 2am Wednesday.

"On the forecast track, the center of Fiona will continue to move away from the Turks and Caicos today, and approach Bermuda late on Thursday," the NHC said.

Go deeper: Puerto Rico requests FEMA assistance

Ferocious Hurricane Fiona now a Category 4 storm

The hurricane strengthened as it moved away from the Turks and Caicos Islands toward Bermuda.

A satellite image of Hurricane Fiona over the Turks and Caicos islands.

hurricanes

The historic heat waves that roasted the U.S. and Europe over the summer may have subsided. But a record marine heat wave is gripping large expanses of the North Atlantic and northern Pacific oceans.

The big picture: It has implications for marine species and extreme weather events, including hurricanes, as climate change exacerbates the problem. NOAA scientists warn it shows no signs of immediately abating.

The endangered Hawksbill turtle in the Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast. 

The endangered Hawksbill turtle in the Atlantic Ocean, off the Florida coast. Photo: Mark Conlin/VW Pics/UIG via Getty Images

Driving the news: "Climate change is making every marine heatwave warmer than the last," research scientist Dillon Amaya, who studies marine heat waves at NOAA's Physical Sciences Laboratory, tells Axios.

"Climate change increases the mean temperature of the ocean (i.e., global warming)," Amaya says. "Marine heatwaves ride that upward trend and are becoming warmer as a result."

By the numbers: "The North Atlantic is currently something like four degrees Celsius warmer than normal, or at least parts of it are. And you end up seeing similar numbers for the North Pacific as well, it's for about four degrees Celsius warmer than normal," Amaya says.

State of play: Heat wave conditions in both the North Pacific and the North Atlantic have lasted for some three months. "For these parts of the world, these temperatures are unprecedented," Amaya says.

Vincent Saba, a fishery biologist at NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center, notes it's "warmed faster in the U.S. Northeast shelf than any other region across the country in the last 15 years."

Fish biomass was still relatively stable, but scientists had observed changes in marine species in the Northwest Atlantic,  Saba said in a phone interview last week.

In the Pacific Ocean, there's a La Niña climate event for the third year in a row. This can lead to warmer than normal conditions in the Northeast Pacific, Amaya said.

Of note: Warming isn't the only impact of climate change.

"We're also talking about an increased concentration of carbon dioxide in the water, which makes the waters more acidic," Saba says. 

"That can impact shelf species like lobster, highly valuable sea scallops. We're still unclear on what those impacts are."

Threat level: "With climate change some marine species will fair better than others," Saba says.

Research suggests warmer water species are staying in the U.S. Northeast for longer, while North Atlantic right whales are foraging in different waters as they follow their plankton prey, which have moved locations — raising concerns about ship collisions and entanglement with fishing gear. 

It's unclear whether this is due to climate change or warming waters, per Saba.

"We've seen major changes in species distributions," he says. "Warmer water species moving north, and a lot of colder water species moving further north out of the system has kind of been the general trend."

Research that Saba and his colleagues have conducted found warmer waters were leading to almost all female sea turtles hatching — though projections indicate the biggest long-term threats will be in hatchling mortality as nests and beaches warm up and erosion from sea level rise destroys nests.

Zoom in: Bette Zirkelbach, manager of the Turtle Hospital in the Florida Keys, said along with the hatchlings issue, she's seen an increased prevalence of fibropapillomatosis (FP), a tumor-causing disease that primarily affects green sea turtles.

In the past 12 months, 70% of about 47 turtles admitted to the hospital with FP were diagnosed with internal tumours and had to be euthanized as there's currently no treatment for internal turmors, Zirkelbach said in a phone interview Tuesday.

"Warmer waters cause these tumours to grow," she said.

Meanwhile, 20 Kemp's ridley sea turtles were flown to the hospital from New England last year after the critically endangered animals stayed too long in Cape Cod Bay instead of moving out with the Gulf Stream.

"The cold weather hits and they get trapped," Zirkelbach said.

What to watch: The marine heat wave isn't just a threat to animals. Models project it may exacerbate the deadly Hurricane Fiona if the storm continues to to track northward and enters the Northwest Atlantic later this week.

If this occurs, it would help Fiona maintain its tropical nature and intensity for longer than if the marine heatwave were not there, Amaya notes. However, "the strong winds and associated upper ocean mixing may help to cool off parts of the ocean that are really warm right now."

The bottom line: To break up the marine heat wave, "the atmospheric wind patterns need to revert back to normal and the ocean would then need time (typically several months) to cool back down without being poked again," Amaya says.

Climate change drives record North Atlantic marine heat wave

"Almost every marine heatwave is warmer than the last because of ... climate change," NOAA scientist says.

 Sea surface temperature anomalies on Sept. 20, in degrees Celsius.

A heat map of sea surface temperature anomalies on Tuesday. Photo: Weatherbell.com