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Exploring the Collision of Extreme Weather, Information Manipulation, and Security Threats in Florida
By Tom Ellison, Erin Sikorsky, and Noah Fritzhand
Information manipulation is increasingly recognized as a contributor to climate risks. 2025 saw landmark academic assessments on the topic, as well as the first action on climate information integrity at a UN climate summit. Meanwhile, bad actors take advantage of opportunities to propagandize, sow confusion, and undermine trust as the impacts of climate change intensify and the stakes of policy action grow. These mutually reinforcing challenges jeopardize security and democracy, especially amid volatile geopolitics, rapid change in the technology and media landscape, and US federal reversals on climate policy and information integrity.
This raises questions for a range of US actors amid intensifying extreme weather. How can state and local officials build resilience and respond to emergencies when facing an unsupportive federal government and global, minimally regulated information threats? What are the implications for US military disaster relief and readiness when information manipulation threatens political cohesion and civilian communities? How can journalism or tech policy serve climate security by mitigating mis/disinformation? And how can academia, civil society, and community groups better collaborate to exchange information and expertise?
The Center for Climate and Security (CCS) recently completed a foresight exercise in Florida to explore these questions. Co-hosted by the University of Miami’s Climate Resilience Institute, the event brought together a diverse mix of expertise, including local resilience and emergency management, national security and foreign policy, communications and information integrity, social and natural sciences, and local climate education and activism. Participants heard from senior homeland security and defense speakers, then engaged in a facilitated scenario exercise exploring a plausible extreme weather, information, and national security crisis in Florida. The discussion highlighted several key themes.
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State Level Climate Security Briefers: Colorado, Hawaii, and Washington
CCS has released the latest in a series of subnational climate security briefers focused on the US states Colorado, Hawaii, and Washington. Each state faces a range of risks to lives, critical infrastructure, military bases, and local economies from intensifying extreme weather and climate hazards. Federal agencies, particularly the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), provide critical support to these states to help manage these risks. That support has, in some cases, already been cut by the Administration or is facing further proposed cuts.
Read the Briefers here:
State Level Climate Security Education: Colorado
By Madeline Craig-Scheckman and Haidi Al-Shabrawey
State Level Climate Security Education: Hawai’i
By Jessica Kēhaulani Wong
State Level Climate Security Education: Washington
By Natalie Fiertz
Read, Watch, Listen: CCS Across the Web | January-February 2025
Welcome to “Read, Watch, Listen” from the Center for Climate and Security (CCS), a round-up highlighting some of the articles, interviews, and podcasts featuring the CCS network of experts.
January and February saw wide-ranging US policy shifts and funding cuts under the new Administration, affecting climate, energy, foreign policy, and defense. See how CCS experts weighed in on these and other issues below.
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NOAA’s Critical Contributions to US National Security
What is NOAA?
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is an agency within the Department of Commerce with roots dating back over 200 years. NOAA was established in 1970 as the nation’s first physical science agency, combining the US Coast and Geodetic Survey, Weather Bureau, and US Commission of Fish and Fisheries (founded throughout the 1800s). NOAA is currently the largest agency within the Department of Commerce, making up roughly a quarter of the personnel and half of the department’s annual budget. NOAA’s budget overall makes up just 0.1% of the entire federal budget, yet is an incredibly outsized economic value add for the American people. A recent study by the American Meteorological Society shows that every dollar invested into the National Weather Service, just one of NOAA’s many services, produces $73 in value for the American public.
NOAA’s mission “to understand and predict changes in climate, weather, ocean, and coasts, to share that knowledge and information with others, and to conserve and manage coastal and marine ecosystems and resources” is crucial in numerous ways for the safety and security of the United States and its people. NOAA’s research programs, vessels, satellites, science centers, laboratories, and extensive pool of distinguished scientists and experts play key roles in protecting human lives and economic prosperity both domestically and internationally. Current reports indicate as many as 880 people across all six offices of the agency, including meteorologists, hydrologists, early warning systems staff, technicians, and other scientists, have been let go, with more potential reductions in force to come. Disruptions to these functions risk harm to global influence, US military capabilities, and homeland security.
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