A United Methodist Insight Special | Oct. 22, 2025
A non-profit organization that tracks severe weather and climate change events has taken over a crucial database – a resource for church planning – that the current federal administration discontinued in June.
Climate Central announced Oct. 22 that it has assumed responsibility for managing and maintaining a billion-dollar disaster dataset previously compiled by the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). President Donald Trump ordered NOAA to cease tracking billion-dollar disasters in May 2025, and Climate Central acquired the database July 28, 2025.
“This dataset tracks and evaluates weather and climate events in the U.S. that have significant economic and societal impacts, providing critical insights into the growing costs of extreme weather in a changing climate,” said the Climate Central announcement. “The billion-dollar disasters analysis demonstrates the economic impact of extreme weather and climate events in inflation-adjusted dollars, helping communicate the real-world consequences of climate change to communities, policymakers, and the public.”
Churches, communities and climate activists can access the database without cost, providing a link to facts that can inform decisions on purchasing and developing property, preparing for potential disasters, and converting to sustainable energy sources. For example, the database may inform new efforts by United Methodist Creation Justice Movement in cooperation with the Council of Bishops on educating the denomination about the global climate crisis and encouraging action to shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
Many Christian denominations and other religious organizations also use this type of data in their efforts to educate people on caring for God’s creation. The United Methodist Church makes environmental sustainability one of its priorities through programs housed at its General Board of Global Ministries.
“As Climate Central continues this important work, we emphasize that disaster impacts result from a combination of increased risk and climate variability,” the organization said on its website. The increase in population and material wealth over recent decades contributes to rising costs, particularly as development has expanded into vulnerable areas like coasts, the wildland-urban interface, and river floodplains.”
“Vulnerability is especially high where building codes are insufficient for reducing damage from extreme events,” the announcement continued. “This increasing exposure and vulnerability help explain why the 2010-2019 decade is far costlier than previous decades (all inflation-adjusted to current dollars). The methodology and data sets are documented in peer-reviewed literature and continue to be refined and improved.”
As churches struggle with renovating and repairing existing structures and coping with increased insurance costs, Climate Central maintaining the database can provide beneficial information.
Climate Central explained the database’s significance thus:
“The increasing number and cost of weather and climate disasters in the U.S. result from a combination of increased exposure (more assets at risk), vulnerability (how much damage a hazard of given intensity causes at a location), and changes in the frequency of some types of extreme weather that lead to billion-dollar disasters (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Compounding Disasters in Gulf Coast Communities 2020-2021: Impacts, Findings, and Lessons (2024); Multi-Hazard Mitigation Council Natural Hazard Mitigation Saves (2019)).
“Research shows that climate variability can alter the frequency and intensity of certain types of extreme weather that lead to billion-dollar disasters — most notably the rise in vulnerability to drought, lengthening wildfire seasons in western states, and the potential for extreme heavy rainfall becoming more common in eastern states. Sea level rise can worsen hurricane storm surge flooding (Fifth National Climate Assessment (2023)).”
While the database currently tracks billion-dollar disasters, the American Meteorological Society has suggested Climate Central consider adding smaller cost thresholds into the analysis. Meteorologists say this addition would capture a more complete picture of hazards and risk. It also could incorporate more local disasters affecting churches and church-related properties. This, in turn, would provide churches and other community organizations with more localized information to prepare for severe weather events and long-term adaptations to climate change. Climate Central is updating the database’s risk-mapping tool toward this purpose.
Climate Central also is providing links to key public sector data sources including FEMA Public Assistance, FEMA Individual Assistance, USDA Risk Management Agency Crop Indemnity, the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, the National Interagency Fire Center wildfire data, the National Flood Insurance Program claims data and the NOAA Storm Events Database.
However, these federal resources are currently unavailable because of the federal government shutdown. They also may be discontinued in future if the Trump administration persists in denying and downplaying the climate crisis by eliminating data that contradicts its policies.
“We also reference state insurance services such as CalFire and FLOIR, the U.S. Department of Defense disaster impact reports, the Federal Highway Administration damage reports and private property insurance data as part of this event analysis,” said the announcement.
“To better understand insured and uninsured assets, we also examine insurance penetration rates for vehicle insurance, home insurance, flood insurance, crop insurance, and business coverage,” the organization said. All these insurances have direct impact on the financial resources and operation of churches and church-related programs.
In the soon-to-be-updated Risk Mapping section of this site, Climate Central will incorporate socioeconomic risk information from the Census American Community Surveys, the CDC Social Vulnerability Index, and other sources that provide additional spatial context of hazard risk. The organization recommends checking more recent analysis of this data in the last available summary :2024 - An active year of U.S. billion-dollar weather and climate disasters, which is an archived page of the Climate.gov website whose updating also was discontinued at President Trump’s order.
“Climate Central continues to provide updated analysis and interpretation of this data to help communities understand and prepare for the growing economic impacts of extreme weather in a changing climate,” the organization said.
Cynthia B. Astle
Photo by Taylor Walters Denyer
Cynthia B. Astle is Editor of United Methodist Insight, an online journal she founded in 2011 as a media channel to amplify news and views about, for and by marginalized and under-served United Methodists.
This article is part of United Methodist Insight’s participation in Covering Climate Now, an international collaboration of 600-plus news outlets committed to enhanced reporting on the global climate crisis.