Impact Outlook: El Niño 2026–27

El Niño Is Here. Here’s Why That’s a Head Start, Not Just a Headline. The equatorial Pacific Ocean now reflects El Niño conditions. Forecasters expect it to keep building through the rest of 2026, most likely peaking this fall and winter. Unlike the hazards that arrive with little notice, a developing El Niño announces itself …

Continue reading "Impact Outlook: El Niño 2026–27"

Read More

Capacity Building with the Ethiopian Meteorological Institute

By Sumana Palle Introduction In December 2025, I traveled to Addis Ababa, as part of a technical capacity-building mission with NCDP’s Financial Instruments (FIST) team, formerly of the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI). Led by Max Mauerman from NCDP and Jeff Turmelle from the Columbia Climate School, the mission was conducted in …

Continue reading "Capacity Building with the Ethiopian Meteorological Institute"

Read More

Leveraging Next-Generation Tsunami Early Warning Systems to Save Lives

Also published in the Columbia Climate School, State of the Planet. When an enormous 8.8 magnitude earthquake struck near Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula, the impact reached far beyond its epicenter. In the passing hours, tsunami alerts were issued by several nations with coastlines along the Pacific Ocean’s Ring of Fire, prompting evacuations and escalating emergency response efforts from …

Continue reading "Leveraging Next-Generation Tsunami Early Warning Systems to Save Lives"

Read More

What is the Climate Finance Vulnerability Index (CliF-VI)?

By: Amy Campbell, Student Researcher, National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP) Adaptation finance is critically underfunded, with existing finance skewed toward mitigation and middle-income markets. Many countries facing the highest climate risk also carry significant debt burdens and have been repeatedly downgraded by credit rating agencies, thereby increasing their cost of capital and pushing adaptation …

Continue reading "What is the Climate Finance Vulnerability Index (CliF-VI)?"

Read More

AI for Wildfires and Heatwaves

Image credit: Bellwether LEAP Wallerstein Panel Series: AI + Extreme Weather Preparedness Based on panel presentations and discussions by Ali Ahmadalipour, Elena Xoplaki, Jatan Buch, and Jorge Pérez Aracil. The 2025 wildfire season in the United States is forecasted to be above normal, highlighting the need to leverage emerging technologies for hazard risk mitigation. At …

Continue reading "AI for Wildfires and Heatwaves"

Read More

Data and AI for Decision-Support and Policy

Image: Whitehall Street Station Flooding LEAP Wallerstein Panel Series: AI + Extreme Weather Preparedness Based on panel presentations and discussions by Dr. Terri Adams-Fuller, Dr. Equisha Glenn, and Dr. Miguel-Ángel Fernández-Torres. Machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) offer new avenues to provide data and build decision support tools that can facilitate extreme weather preparedness …

Continue reading "Data and AI for Decision-Support and Policy"

Read More