My Parents Will Finally Have Something Else To Talk About Besides The Weather

Checking your local air quality may someday become included in your daily routine.
With the help of NASA, researchers are working on an operational system to try and predict global forecasts of air pollution on a ground level.
Europe is responsible for testing the combination of atmospheric satellite data with that of weather station data. Richard Engelen of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts in the United Kingdom states,
"Regional modeling is already getting quite meaningful."
The Global and Regional Earth System (Atmosphere) Monitoring Using Satellite and In-Situ Data project is still in its experimental stage but the finishing product is hoping to not only inform you of the pollution level that your breathing in but also notify you of where it is coming from, (if not from your own city). Source.

And We Thought The 80s Were Disastrous

Oxfam is reporting that the number of weather related disasters have quadrupled in the past 20 years. As the worlds population increases, the demand for additional living area amplifies. More people living in the same amount of space; more people to be affected by a natural disaster. Now imagine increasing the amount of natural disasters.
An average of 500 such disasters are now taking place each year, compared to 120 in the 1980s, the report says. In that same amount of time there has been 6 times as many floods.
Oxfam warns world-wide communities, especially those directly affected by climate change, to seek aid to prepare for future weather catastrophes. If not then the ability to respond to such a disaster will be overpowering. Source.