Credit: Mark Schrope
By: Aubrey Taylor
Tropical Storm Oscar crept up from the North Atlantic Ocean at a leisurely 40 miles per hour on the morning of Oct. 19, 2024 and ambled toward the Turks and Caicos Islands. Based on the data available, meteorologists believed the tiny storm was unlikely to cause major damage. Yet only three hours later, Oscar’s wind speeds had somehow doubled to a destructive 80 miles per hour—and the tropical storm was now, undeniably, a Category 1 Hurricane. Read More
“An Ocean of Potential” was the tagline at this year’s Our Ocean conference in Greece on April 15-17. The phrase encompasses the breadth of possibilities that the ocean holds for us. It also encapsulates EDF’s approach to supporting climate-resilient fisheries and oceans. What do we mean when we say that there is “an ocean of potential”? Read More
By Christopher Cusack (EDF) and Cooper Van Vranken (Ocean Data Network)
In the early hours of October 25, 2023, Hurricane Otis made landfall near Acapulco, Mexico, with peak winds of 165 mph wreaking havoc on communities in its path. Normally, people would have had a chance to prepare but just the day before, the consensus of models forecasted that Otis would remain a tropical storm. Within hours of these predictions, Otis exploded into a Category 5 storm, the most intense classification. When the skies eventually cleared, the damage stood at a staggering $16 billion, and at least 53 people had lost their lives.
