Extreme Weather Risk to Military Operations in a Changing Climate

Abstract

History demonstrates harsh weather conditions introduce uncertainty and risk into warfare. James L Regens examines the implications of extreme weather risk in a changing climate for military operations within and across the six domains of warfare and, therefore, for strategy. Because it is imperative that operations and campaigns are feasible meteorologically, reliably forecasting the frequency and intensity of extreme weather is one of the most important challenges posed by climate change for the US and allied militaries. That knowledge, combined with understanding extreme weather’s impacts on human performance, equipment and installations, is essential for conducting operations and informing strategy.◼

Notes

1. Military operations are divided into four physical domains or dimensions of warfare: air; ground; maritime (surface and subsurface naval); and space. In addition, information operations and cyberspace are cross-cutting domains constituting warfare’s 5^th and 6^th dimensions. Information operations are coordinated offensive, exploitative and defensive efforts intended to degrade or exploit an adversary’s cognition and situational awareness for competitive advantage while countering an enemy’s information operations. See United States Marine Corps, Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication (MCDP) 8: Information (Washington, DC: Department of the Navy, Headquarters United States Marine Corps, 21 June 2022); Catherine A Theohary, ‘Defense Primer: Information Operations’, Congressional Research Service, updated 9 December 2022. Cyberspace, sometimes categorised as an element of information warfare, is the notional environment of interconnected systems, devices and networks through which communication and data exchange is facilitated and occurs. See Derek S Reveron (ed.), Cyberspace and National Security: Threats, Opportunities, and Power in a Virtual World (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2012); Martin Crilly and Alan Mears, ‘Multi Dimensional and Domain Operations (MDDO)’, Wavell Room, 26 January 2022, <https://wavellroom.com/2022/01/26/mddo.>, accessed 5 February 2024.

2. King Frederick II of Prussia, Frederick the Great: Instructions for His Generals (1747), iii quote cited in Colonel Robert Debs Heinl, Jr, Dictionary of Military and Naval Quotations (Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute, 1966), p. 149.

3. The Mongol invasions of Japan in 1274 (Bun’ei Campaign) and 1281 (Koan Campaign) were defeated when typhoon storms and the so-called kamikaze or ‘divine winds’ severely damaged two huge fleets from Korea and China, sinking a number of ships. See Stephen Turnbull, The Mongol Invasions of Japan, 1274 and 1281 (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2010); the Battle of Agincourt on Saint Crispin’s Day in 1415 was an English victory in the Hundred Year’s War aided by two weeks of continuous rain that made the recently ploughed land on which the battle took place a sea of thick mud. See Anne Curry, Agincourt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015); the Spanish Armada was the naval part of a planned Spanish invasion of England in 1588 stymied by adverse winds which blew the ships towards the North Sea where many were wrecked off the rocky coasts of Scotland and Ireland. See Robert Hutchinson, The Spanish Armada: A History (New York, NY: Thomas Dunne Books, 2014); the Battle of Trenton was a small but pivotal American Revolutionary War victory over Hessian mercenaries on the morning of 26 December 1776 after General George Washington’s army crossed the Delaware River in a treacherous storm. See David Hackett Fischer, Washington’s Crossing (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2004); Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow in 1812 was a disaster plagued by poor decisions and execution of plans as well as an unusually early winter with high winds, sub-zero temperatures and heavy snowfall leaving only an estimated 100,000 Grande Armée soldiers as survivors from at least 450,000 – and possibly as many as 650,000 – when the invasion started. See David A Bell, The First Total War: Napoleon’s Europe and the Birth of Warfare as We Know It (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2007); Germany’s winter campaign of 1941–42, centred on the Battle of Moscow, involved brutal cold with average temperatures plunging to -12.8 °C in December 1941, freezing German aircraft, tanks, equipment and troops. This is commonly seen as Hitler’s first defeat. See David Stahel, Retreat from Moscow: A New History of Germany’s Winter Campaign, 1941-1942 (New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019); the 1944 D-Day invasion of France was postponed from 5 June to 6 June because of bad weather conditions and air operations required clear skies and a full moon for good visibility, naval operations required low winds and calm seas to safely transport troops ashore, and ground troops needed to land at low tide. See Peter Caddick-Adams, Sand and Steel: The D-Day Invasion and the Liberation of France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019); the Battle of Chosin Reservoir fought from November–December 1950 was the most brutal battle during the Korean War fought in temperatures as low -38 °C on frozen ground, snow-covered mountains, icy roads and wind-swept cliffs. See Hampton Sides, On Desperate Ground: The Marines at The Reservoir, the Korean War’s Greatest Battle (New York, NY: Knopf Doubleday, 2018).

4. As early as 1814, US Army Medical Corps personnel were ordered to record weather data at their posts. This activity was subsequently expanded and made more systematic. See Lieutenant Colonel Edgar Erskine Hume, ‘The Foundation of American Meteorology by the United States Army Medical Department’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine (Vol. 8, No. 2, February 1940), pp. 202–38. The UK Meteorological Office’s Meteorological Field Service issued its first operational military weather forecast to the British Army produced by Major Ernest Gold on 24 October 1916 during the Battle of the Somme. See Meteorological Office, ‘The Met Office in WW1: Ernest Gold and the First Operational Military Forecast 24 October 1916’, <https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/library-and-archive/archive-hidden-treasures/first-military-forecas.>, accessed 5 February 2024. Advances in mathematical modelling and physics starting in the early 20^th century allowed meteorology to shift from subjective description of patterns to prediction. Militaries started systematically applying those capabilities in the Second World War. See Maureen Searcy, ‘The World War II-Era Chicago School of Meteorology That Decoded Weather Forecasting’, UChicago News, 30 December 2020, <https://news.uchicago.edu/story/world-war-ii-era-chicago-school-meteorology-decoded-weather-forecastin.>, accessed 5 February 2024.

5. World Economic Forum, ‘The Global Risks Report 2020: 15^th edition’, 15 January 2020, <https://www.weforum.org/publications/the-global-risks-report-2020.>, accessed 5 February 2024.

6. See Irina Patrahau et al., ‘Resilient and Robust: Climate-proofing the Military for Increased Military Effectiveness’, Hague Centre for Strategic Studies, April 2023, <https://hcss.nl/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Resilient-and-Robust-HCSS-2023-april-update.pd.>, accessed 5 February 2024; Marju Kõrts, ‘Climate Change Mitigation in the Armed Forces – Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction – Challenges and Opportunities for Green Defense’, NATO Energy Security Centre of Excellence, 3 April 2023, <https://www.enseccoe.org/publications/climate-change-mitigation-in-the-armed-forces-greenhouse-gas-emission-reduction-challenges-and-opportunities-for-green-defense.>, accessed 5 February 2024; Ben Barry, with contributions from Shiloh Fetzek and Lieutenant Colonel Caroline Emmett, ‘Green Defence: The Defence and Military Implications of Climate Change for Europe’, International Institute for Strategic Studies, February 2022, <https://www.iiss.org/globalassets/media-library---content--migration/files/research-papers/2022/green-defence---the-defence-and-military-implications-of-climate-change-for-europe.pd.>, accessed 5 February 2024.

7. The White House, ‘National Security Strategy: October 2022’, 12 October 2022, p. 27, <https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Biden-Harris-Administrations-National-Security-Strategy-10.2022.pd.>, accessed 5 February 2024. See also Ministère des Armées, ‘Climate & Defence Strategy’, April 2022, translated version of original French text, <https://www.defense.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/ministere-armees/Presentation%20Climate%20ans%20defence%20strategy.pd.>, accessed 5 February 2024; Japan Ministry of Defense, ‘Ministry of Defense Response Strategy on Climate Change’, August 2022, <https://www.mod.go.jp/j/approach/agenda/meeting/kikouhendou/pdf/taishosenryaku_202208_e.pd.>, accessed 5 February 2024.

8. Apprehension surrounds the conclusions of an October 2023 study evaluating IPCC estimates of the remaining carbon budget (RCB) to keep net CO₂ emissions to an equivalent of less than or equal to 1.5 °C, supplemented by more current data, calculation refinements and robustness checks to increase confidence in meeting the Paris Agreement’s global warming limit to keep global warming below 2 °C relative to pre-industrial levels. See Seth Borenstein, ‘In Early 2029, Earth Will Likely Lock into Breaching Key Warming Threshold, Scientists Calculate’, Seattle Times, 30 October 2023. The study asserts that, as of January 2023, the RCB for a 50% chance of keeping warming to 1.5 °C is around 250 GtCO₂ equal to around six years of current CO₂ emissions. For a 50% chance of 2 °C, the RCB is around 1,200 GtCO₂. It is worth noting key uncertainties affect RCB estimates and minor changes in their calculation can result in large relative adjustments. See Robin D Lamboll et al., ‘Assessing the Size and Uncertainty of Remaining Carbon Budgets’, Nature Climate Change, 30 October 2023, doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01848-5; and Benjamin M Sanderson, ‘Estimating Vanishing Allowable Emissions for 1.5 °C’, Nature Climate Change, 30 October 2023, doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01846-7.

9. For weather data and forecasts, see Copernicus Climate Change Service, <https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/.!/home/>, accessed 6 February 2024; Met Office, <https://www.metoffice.gov.uk.>, accessed 6 February 2024; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, <https://www.noaa.gov.>, accessed 6 February 2024; World Meteorological Organization, <https://wmo.int.>, accessed 6 February 2024.

10. World Meteorological Organization, ‘2023 Shatters Climate Records, With Major Impacts’, 30 November 2023, <https://wmo.int/news/media-centre/2023-shatters-climate-records-major-impacts.>, accessed 6 February 2024; Copernicus Climate Change Service, ‘Warmest December Concludes Warmest Year on Record’, 11 January 2024, <https://climate.copernicus.eu/warmest-december-concludes-warmest-year-record.>, accessed 7 February 2024.

11. Elena Shao, ‘What This Year’s “Astonishing” Ocean Heat Means for the Planet’, New York Times, 3 August 2023; David Chauzen, ‘Extreme Heat Would Put One in Three in Paris at Risk’, The Times, 20 July 2023; Erwida Maulia, Apornrath Phoonphongphiphat and Lien Hoang, ‘South-East Asia Braced for Fires and Drought Brought on by El Niño’, Financial Times, 28 June 2023; Michaela Mulligan, ‘A Meteotsunami Was on Clearwater Beach. Here’s What to Know About It’, Tampa Bay Times, 26 June 2023; Rajendra Jadhav, ‘Explainer: Why El Niño is a Concern for Indian Monsoon Rains?’, Reuters, 16 May 2023; Graham Readfearn, ‘“Headed Off The Charts”: World’s Ocean Surface Temperature Hits Record High’, The Guardian, 7 April 2023.

12. La Niña, also sometimes called El Viejo, is the warm phase deviation from average sea surface temperatures (SST) in the Southern Oscillation cycle. La Niña has the opposite effect of El Niño with the Pacific jet stream. During La Niña events, trade winds are even stronger than usual, pushing more warm water towards Asia. Off the west coast of the Americas, upwelling increases, bringing cold, nutrient-rich water to the surface. During La Niña, waters in the eastern Pacific off Asia’s coast are warmer while those off North America’s Pacific coast are colder. See National Ocean Service, ‘What are El Niño and La Niña?’, <https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/ninonina.htm.>, accessed 6 February 2024.

13. See Andrew G Turner and H Annamalai, ‘Climate Change and the South Asian Summer Monsoon’, Nature Climate Change (Vol. 2, 2012), pp. 587–95; Pritam Jyoti Borah et al., ‘Indian Monsoon Derailed by a North Atlantic Wavetrain’, Science (Vol. 370, No. 6522, 2020), pp. 1335–38; Zhibo Li et al., ‘Projections of South Asian Summer Monsoon Under Global Warming From 1.5° to 5 °C’, Journal of Climate (Vol. 34, No. 19, September 2021), pp. 7913–26.

14. The NAO is a large-scale fluctuation in atmospheric sea surface pressure for the North Atlantic Ocean between its subtropical high centred on the Azores and its subpolar low centred on Iceland. Its variation controls the strength and direction of westerly winds and location of storm tracks across the North Atlantic, dictating climate variability from the eastern seaboard of the US to Siberia and from the Arctic to the subtropical Atlantic, especially during boreal winter. See James W Hurrell, Yochanan Kushnir and Geir Ottersen, ‘An Overview of the North Atlantic Oscillation’, in James W Hurrell et al. (eds), The North Atlantic Oscillation: Climatic Significance and Environmental Impact, Vol. 134 (Washington, DC: American Geophysical Union, 2003), pp. 1–35. See also Jürg Luterbacher et al., ‘Circulation Dynamics and its Influence on European and Mediterranean January–April Climate over the Past Half Millennium: Results and Insights from Instrumental Data, Documentary Evidence and Coupled Climate Models’, Climatic Change (Vol. 101, January 2010), pp. 201–34.

15. See Sam White, Christian Pfister and Franz Mauelshagen, The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018); Hans-Otto Pörtner et al. (eds), The Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate: A Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Geneva: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2019).

16. A tropical cyclone is a generic term for a rotating, organised system of clouds and thunderstorms originating over tropical or subtropical waters and has closed, low-level circulation. Tropical depressions are the weakest tropical cyclones. The tropical depression becomes a tropical storm if its maximum sustained winds reach 39 mph. It is classified as a hurricane, typhoon or tropical cyclone once maximum sustained winds reach more than or equal to 74 mph, depending upon where the storm originates. The generic term tropical cyclone is used in the South Pacific and Indian Ocean, regardless of wind speed. See Gerry Bell, ‘Impacts of El Niño and La Niña on the Hurricane Season’, ENSO Blog, 30 May 2014, <https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/impacts-el-ni%c3%b1o-and-la-ni%c3%b1a-hurricane-seaso.>, accessed 6 February 2024; National Ocean Service, ‘What is the Difference Between a Hurricane and a Typhoon?’, <https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/cyclone.htm.>, accessed 6 February 2024.

17. See Jining Yan et al., ‘Temporal Convolutional Networks for the Advance Prediction of ENSO’, Scientific Reports (Vol. 10, No. 8055, May 2020); Noel S Keenlyside and Jin Ba, ‘Prospects for Decadal Climate Prediction’, WIREs Climate Change (Vol. 1, No. 5, September/October 2010), pp. 627–35; Mojib Latif and Noel S Keenlyside, ‘El Niño/Southern Oscillation Response to Global Warming’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Vol. 106, No. 49, December 2009), pp. 20578–83.

18. Mesoscale meteorological phenomena are atmospheric conditions that have spatial scales typically ranging between 10 and 1,000 km, or in some studies to 2,000 km, in horizontal extent and of variable vertical height in the Earth’s lower atmosphere. Examples of mesoscale phenomena include air temperature, wind speed, wind direction, relative humidity, atmospheric pressure, density, atmospheric stability, thunderstorms, lightning, gap winds, downslope windstorms, land-sea breezes and squall lines. See Yuh-Lang Lin, Mesoscale Dynamics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

19. See US Joint Chiefs of Staff, ‘Joint Publication 3-59: Meteorological and Oceanographic Operations’, 10 January 2018; US Marine Corps, ‘MCRP 2-10B.6: MAGTF Meteorological and Oceanographic Operations’, 20 March 2018; US Air Force, ‘Air Force Doctrine Publication 3-59: Weather Operations’, 28 October 2020. Direct weather support to the US Army was established via an inter-service support agreement based on the National Security Act of 1947. See US Departments of the Army and the Air Force, ‘Weather Support for the US Army’, Air Force Instruction 15–157 / Army Regulation 115–10, 2 September 2021. See also NATO’s Strategic Warfare Development Command, ‘NATO Centres of Excellence – Cold Weather Operations (CWO COE)’, 18 August 2023, <https://www.act.nato.int/article/nato-centres-of-excellence-cold-weather-operations-cwo-coe.>, accessed 7 February 2024.

20. See James L Regens and Quint D Avenetti, ‘Component-Based System for Computer Implemented Multi-dimensional Gridded Mesoscale Meteorological Projection’, US Patent No. 10,983,250 B1, 20 April 2021, US Patent and Trademark Office, <https://ppubs.uspto.gov/dirsearch-public/print/downloadPdf/10983250.>, accessed 7 February 2024.

21. One nautical mile/hour, commonly referred to using the term knot, is a measure of speed at sea. A nautical mph equals 1.852 km/h or 1.151 statute mph.

22. See Heise, ‘NATO is Responding to New Challenges Posed by Climate Change’.

23. See Subhodeep Ghosh, ‘How Ships Sail Against the Wind – Impacts of Wind Action on a Vessel’, Naval Architecture, 3 January 2022, <https://www.marineinsight.com/naval-architecture/ships-sail-against-the-wind.>, accessed 7 February 2024.

24. See Kaung Suu Lwin et al., ‘Effects of Desert Dust and Sandstorms on Human Health: A Scoping Review’, GeoHealth (Vol. 7, No. 3, March 2023); Josh Foster et al., ‘Quantifying the Impact of Heat on Human Physical Work Capacity; Part II: The Observed Interaction of Air Velocity With Temperature, Humidity, Sweat Rate, and Clothing is Not Captured by Most Heat Stress Indices’, International Journal of Biometeorology (Vol. 66, No. 3, March 2022), pp. 507–20; David Knapp, Robb Randall and Jim Staley, ‘Atmospheric Impacts and Effects Predictions and Applications for Future Megacity and Dense Urban Area Operations’, Small Wars Journal, 22 March 2016, <https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/atmospheric-impacts-and-effects-predictions-and-applications-for-future-megacity-and-dense.>, accessed 7 February 2024; and Matthew C Baddock, John Leys and Stephen Heidenreich, ‘A Visibility and Total Suspended Dust Relationship’, Atmospheric Environment (Vol. 89, June 2014), pp. 329–36.

25. See National Research Council of the National Academies, Review of the Department of Defense Enhanced Particulate Matter Surveillance Program Report (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2010); H L Kelsall et al., ‘Respiratory Health Status of Australian Veterans of the 1991 Gulf War and the Effects of Exposure to Oil Fire Smoke and Dust Storms’, Thorax (Vol. 59, No. 10, October 2004), pp. 897–903.

26. See Captain John W Anderson, An Analysis of a Dust Storm Impacting Operation Iraqi Freedom, 25–27 March 2003 (Monterey, CA: Naval Postgraduate School, 2004). For an example of weather effects during the Gulf War, see Randy C Nelson, ‘The Combat Use of Apache Helicopters in the Kuwaiti Theater of Operations – Effective or Not?’, US Army Command and General Staff College, 1992. For Afghanistan, see Timothy Allen Carter and Daniel Jay Veale, ‘Weather, Terrain and Warfare: Coalition Fatalities in Afghanistan’, Conflict Management and Peace Science (Vol. 30, No. 3, July 2013), pp. 220–39.

27. See Nick Middleton, ‘Variability and Trends in Dust Storm Frequency on Decadal Timescales: Climatic Drivers and Human Impacts’, Geosciences (Vol. 9, No. 6, 2019), p. 261; Jinling Piao et al., ‘Increased Sandstorm Frequency in North China in 2023: Climate Change Reflection on the Mongolian Plateau’, Innovation (Camb) (Vol. 4, No. 5, September 2023).

28. Daniel Gliksman et al., ‘Review Article: A European Perspective on Wind and Storm Damage – From the Meteorological Background to Index-based Approaches to Assess Impacts’, Natural Hazards and Earth Systems Science (Vol. 23, No. 6, 2023), pp. 2171–201.

29. Fulvio Gini, ‘Grand Challenges in Radar Signal Processing’, Frontiers in Signal Processing (Vol. 1, Article 664232, 2021).

30. Wind chill and the heat index describe what air temperature feels like to humans exposed to outdoor settings as body heat is removed (wind chill) or increased (heat index).

31. See Army Technology, ‘Apache Attack Helicopter (AH-64A/D)’, <https://www.army-technology.com/projects/apache/?cf-view.>, accessed 7 February 2024; Heise, ‘NATO is Responding to New Challenges Posed by Climate Change’.

32. See David Choi, ‘US Military Issues Warning as Heavy Rains, Deadly Flooding Continue in South Korea’, Stars and Stripes, 9 August 2022, <https://www.stripes.com/theaters/asia_pacific/2022-08-09/rains-south-korea-seoul-roads-rivers-7-dead-6924828.htm.>, accessed 7 February 2024; Erin Sikorsky, ‘The World’s Militaries Aren’t Ready for Climate Change’, Foreign Policy, 22 September 2022.

33. See Kristie L Ebi et al., ‘Hot Weather and Heat Extremes: Health Risks’, The Lancet (Vol. 398, No. 10301, 2021), pp. 698–708; Marika Falla et al., ‘The Effect of Cold Exposure on Cognitive Performance in Healthy Adults: A Systematic Review’, International Journal Environmental Research and Public Health (Vol. 18, 2021); Lee Taylor et al., ‘The Impact of Different Environmental Conditions on Cognitive Function: A Focused Review’, Frontiers of Physiology (Vol. 6, No. 372, January 2016); Robert Carter III et al., ‘Epidemiology of Hospitalizations and Deaths from Heat Illness in Soldiers’, Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise (Vol. 37, No. 8, 2005), pp. 1338–44; David W DeGroot, ‘Epidemiology of US Army Cold Weather Injuries, 1980–1999’, Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine (Vol. 74, No. 5, 2003), pp. 564–70.

34. See Earl F Ziemke, The German Northern Theater of Operations 1940-1945 (Washington, DC: US Department of the Army, 1959); Lynn Montross and Nicholas A Canzona, US Marine Operations in Korea 1950-1953, Volume 3 (of 5): The Chosin Reservoir Campaign (Arlington, VA: Headquarters, US Marine Corps, 1957); Jerry L Durrant, In Every Clime and Place: USMC Cold Weather Doctrine (Fort Leavenworth, KS: United States Army Command and General Staff College, 1992); for detailed discussions of operations in extreme cold weather including in near-Arctic or -Antarctic environments, see Harold A Winters, Battling the Elements: Weather and Terrain in the Conduct of War (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998).

35. See White House, ‘National Strategy for the Arctic Region’, October 2002, <https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/National-Strategy-for-the-Arctic-Region.pd.>, accessed 7 February 2024.

36. NATO countries – the US, Canada, Denmark and Norway – control 47% and Russia controls 53% of the Arctic Ocean’s coastline. Finland, Iceland and Sweden have territories inside the Arctic circle. China and India increasingly are focusing on the Arctic’s international importance and vast natural resources.

37. See Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen and Gwladys Fouché, ‘Dark Arctic: NATO Allies Wake Up to Russian Supremacy in the Region’, Reuters, 16 November 2022; Colin Wall and Njord Wegge, ‘The Russian Arctic Threat: Consequences of the Ukraine War’, Center for Strategic & International Studies, 25 January 2023, <https://www.csis.org/analysis/russian-arctic-threat-consequences-ukraine-wa.>, accessed 7 February 2024; Christian Perez, ‘How Russia’s Future With NATO Will Impact the Arctic’, Foreign Policy Analytics, 25 February 2022; Eugene Rumer, Richard Sokolsky and Paul Stronski, ‘Russia in the Arctic – A Critical Examination’, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 29 March 2021, <https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/03/29/russia-in-arctic-critical-examination-pub-8418.>, accessed 7 February 2024.

38. See Stephanie Pezard et al., China’s Strategy and Activities in the Arctic: Implications for North American and Transatlantic Security (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2022); Doug Irving, ‘What Does China’s Arctic Presence Mean to the United States?’, RAND Blog, 29 December 2022, <https://www.rand.org/pubs/articles/2022/what-does-chinas-arctic-presence-mean-to-the-us.htm.>, accessed 7 February 2024.

39. See Abbie Tingstad et al., Report on the Arctic Capabilities of the US Armed Forces (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2023); NATO, ‘Vilnius Summit Communiqué’, 11 July 2023, points 14, 34, <https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_217320.ht.>, accessed 7 February 2024; Lee Mottola, ‘NATO’s Arctic Command: A Case for the Expansion of NATO’s Mission in the High North’, The Arctic Institute, 17 January 2023, <https://www.thearcticinstitute.org/nato-arctic-command-case-expansion-nato-mission-high-north.>, accessed 7 February 2024; Abbie Tingstad and Scott Savitz, ‘US Military May Need to Invest More in Arctic Capabilities’, RAND Blog, 10 February 2022, <https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2022/02/us-military-may-need-to-invest-more-in-arctic-capabilities.htm.>, accessed 7 February 2024; Michael J Forsyth, ‘Why Alaska and the Arctic are Critical to the National Security of the United States’, Military Review (January–February 2018).

40. See US Departments of the Army and the Air Force, FM 34-81/AFM 105-4: Weather Support for Army Tactical Operations (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1989); US Department of the Army, FM 34-81-1: Battlefield Weather Effects (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1992).

41. See Bo Hang Wang et al., ‘An Overview of Various Kinds of Wind Effects on Unmanned Aerial Vehicle’, Measurement and Control (Vol. 52, No. 7–8, 2019), pp. 731–39; K-U Hahn, ‘Effect of Wind Shear on Flight Safety’, Progress in Aerospace Sciences (Vol. 26, No. 3, 1989), pp. 225–59.

42. See Naval History and Heritage Command, ‘Typhoons and Hurricanes: The Effects of Cyclonic Winds on US Naval Operations’, 23 September 2005, <https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/t/the-effects-of-cyclonic-winds-on-us-naval-operations.htm.>, accessed 7 February 2024; Chief of Naval Operations, ‘OPNAV Instruction 3140.24E: Warnings and Conditions of Readiness Concerning Hazardous or Destructive Weather Phenomena’, 21 December 1993, <https://navytribe.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/opnavinst-3140-24.pd.>, accessed 7 February 2024.

43. US Department of the Navy, ‘Climate Action 2030’, May 2022, <https://www.navy.mil/Portals/1/Documents/Department%20of%20the%20Navy%20Climate%20Action%202030.pd.>, accessed 7 February 2024.

44. See US Department of the Navy, ‘The Department of the Navy Hosts Climate Tabletop Exercise’, press release, 29 June 2022, <https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/Press-Releases/display-pressreleases/Article/3079453/the-department-of-the-navy-hosts-climate-tabletop-exercise.>, accessed 7 February 2024; Justin Katz, ‘An Island, an Amphib, a Typhoon: Navy Hosts Climate-focused War Game’, Breaking Defense; Diana Stancy Correll, ‘Navy-Marine War Game Puts Their Climate Action Strategy to the Test’, Navy Times, 30 June 2022, <https://navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2022/06/30/navy-marine-war-game-puts-their-climate-action-strategy-to-the-test.>, accessed 7 February 2024.

45. The exosphere is located between about 700 and 10,000 km above the Earth’s surface, and, at its top, merges with the solar wind. See S F Singer, ‘Structure of the Earth’s Exosphere’, Journal of Geophysical Research (Vol. 65, No. 9, September 1960), pp. 2577–80.

46. Robin George Andrews, ‘Solar Storm Destroys 40 SpaceX Satellites in Orbit’, New York Times, 9 February 2022.

47. See Rebecca Grant, ‘Storms of War’, Air & Space Forces Magazine (1 July 2004), <https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/0704storm.>, accessed 7 February 2024.

48. See US Departments of the Army and the Air Force, FM 34-81/AFM 105; US Department of the Army, FM 34-81-1; John W Weatherly and D R Hill, ‘OS-02: The Impact of Climate and Extreme Weather Events on Military Operations’, Proceedings of the 24^th Army Science Conference, Orlando, FL, 29 November–2 December 2004, <https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA432260.pd.>, accessed 7 February 2024; Mangesh Sawant, ‘Weather: The Only Constant in Warfare’, Expeditions with MCUP (January 2023), pp. 1–29.

49. See Rod Schoonover, ‘Climate Change Should be Recognized for What it is: An Issue of National Security’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Vol. 77, No. 1, 2021), pp. 31–32; Erin Sikorsky, ‘National Security and Climate Change: The Attention It Deserves?’, Survival (Vol. 64, No. 1, 2022), pp. 67–73; Mark A Buckman, ‘Climate Change and National Security’, Comparative Strategy (Vol. 42, No. 2, 2023), pp. 187–226.

50. Much of this effort concentrates on reducing the military’s use of fossil fuel to decrease greenhouse gas emissions. See for example, US DoD, ‘Department of Defense Plan to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions’, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, April 2023; John Conger, ‘Unpacking the Pentagon’s $3.1 Billion Climate Request’; Neta C Crawford, The Pentagon, Climate Change, and War: Charting the Rise and Fall of U.S. Military Emissions (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2022).

51. See National Intelligence Council, ‘Climate Change and International Responses Increasing Challenges to US National Security Through 2040’, NIC-NIE-2021-10030-A, October 2021, <https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/NIE_Climate_Change_and_National_Security.pd.>, accessed 8 February 2024.

52. Operation Eagle Claw, the Carter administration’s April 1980 attempt to rescue 52 hostages from the American Embassy in Iran, failed primarily because (1) the risk of a haboob, a penetrating sandstorm or dust storm with violent winds and suspended dust extending about 3,000 m above ground level, was not integrated into mission planning and training, and (2) information was not communicated to the RH-53 helicopters enroute to Desert-One after the C-130 aircraft encountered two severe dust storms. The failure caused the death of five US airmen and three Marines, destruction of one RH-53 helicopter and a special operations-capable C-130 aircraft. It also incurred a loss of sensitive mission information left in one of the crippled helicopters, and a decline in American prestige internationally that significantly contributed to Presdient Jimmy Carter losing the 1980 presidential election to Ronald Reagan. See Elaine Kamarck, ‘The Iranian Hostage Crisis and its Effect on American Politics’, Brookings Institution, 4 November 2019, <https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-iranian-hostage-crisis-and-its-effect-on-american-politics.>, accessed 8 February 2024; Joseph T Benson, ‘Weather and the Wreckage at Desert-One’, Maxwell Air University, 21 February 2007, <https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/ASPJ/journals/Chronicles/benson.pd.>, accessed 8 February 2024; Paul B Ryan, The Iranian Rescue Mission: Why It Failed (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1985).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

James L Regens

James L Regens is a Regents Professor Emeritus and founding Director of the Center for Intelligence and National Security at the University of Oklahoma.