Biden-Harris Administration, NOAA invest $15 million to help protect Western U.S. communities from wildfire
The Department of Commerce and NOAA announced today that approximately $15 million has been provided through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to construct and deploy a new suite of fire weather observing systems in high-risk locations in the Western United States to support wildfire prediction, detection and monitoring. The investments support four distinct but related components of a regional fire weather observing system that relies on different technologies and approaches with the goal of improving wildfire prediction, detection and monitoring from the regional to local scales. “Catastrophic wildfires threaten the lives and livelihoods of many communities across the country, which is
Satellite-Derived Shoreline Change Along Western Long Island, New York
The study found that the western ends of these beaches have been steadily growing, or accreting, at a rate of about 4 meters per year. This trend is attributed to net westward longshore drift, a process driven by ocean currents that move sediment along the coastline. Meanwhile, the central sections of the beaches, particularly areas with groin fields—structures designed to trap sand—showed slower rates of shoreline change, typically between 0.5 and 1.5 meters per year. One notable observation was the presence of so-called sediment waves, or patterns of erosion and accretion lasting several years, moving westward along the shoreline during the