Rong-Gong Lin II
Rong-Gong Lin II reports for the Los Angeles Times on California’s most consequential natural hazards, connecting climate science and public health data to the lived impact of extreme weather and other disasters. His coverage stands out for translating complex phenomena such as El Niño, sea-level rise and heat waves into clear, scenario-driven reporting that shows how they will reshape communities and infrastructure.
El Niño and California’s changing coast
El Niño is a central thread in Lin’s work, and he returns to it repeatedly as a driver of coastal flooding, erosion and long-term risk to California’s beaches and shoreline communities.
He has reported on forecasts of a “super” El Niño that carries a 95% chance of developing, laying out how that pattern could produce a wet and destructive winter and push sea levels to record highs along the state’s coast. His stories detail how a strengthening El Niño, combined with rising seas, can bring the highest sea levels ever recorded to California, raising the risk of widespread flooding in low-lying areas.
He has also shown how modern efforts to armor the shoreline with seawalls and other coastal-hardening projects, intended to protect homes from El Niño-driven waves, can hasten the disappearance of beaches as sand is squeezed between a rising ocean and fixed barriers. In photo-driven and data-heavy pieces, Lin explains how hotter ocean waters and repeated El Niño seasons are already eating away at California’s beaches and could redraw the coast this century, using modeling and erosion records to quantify how much of the shoreline is at risk.
Extreme heat, humidity and marine hazards
Beyond El Niño, Lin devotes significant attention to how extreme heat and humidity are changing daily life in California. He has chronicled Southern California heat waves that are “breaking so many records,” noting dozens of daily temperature records tied or broken in a single event and highlighting the shift toward more frequent, intense heat outside traditional summer months. His reporting on L.A.’s unusually humid summer frames the city’s “perfect” Mediterranean weather as a fading expectation, explaining how remnants of hurricanes and El Niño-linked ocean warming have helped produce some of the highest humidities on record in coastal Southern California. Lin also covers marine phenomena that compound coastal risk, such as coastally trapped Kelvin waves that travel up the Pacific Coast and quietly raise sea levels by several inches for months at a time. In stories on new heat waves driven in part by Tropical Storm Elida and a persistent marine heat wave, he shows how hotter offshore waters can fuel muggy nights, dangerous surf and stormier conditions along the beaches.
Climate-driven disasters and wildfire risk
Climate-linked disasters on land are another focus of Lin’s beat, where he traces how multiple weather extremes combine to produce catastrophic outcomes. He has reported on major wildfire seasons in and around Los Angeles, describing how intense rains, unprecedented heat, prolonged dryness and powerful winds created worst-case conditions for fires such as the Eaton and Palisades blazes. These stories quantify the destruction in terms of structures lost and lives taken, and they draw directly on scientists’ assessments that extreme heat linked to climate change has contributed to larger, more intense fires across California.
Lin’s coverage often reconstructs key hours of a disaster, using radio traffic and official records to show how quickly a small brush fire can explode into a devastating blaze, and how emergency managers respond under pressure. Within this broader disaster lens, his remit also includes statewide earthquake safety issues, situating seismic risk alongside fires, floods and coastal hazards as part of California’s long-term safety challenge.
Public health, environmental justice and risk mapping
Public health and environmental justice run through Lin’s reporting when hazards threaten residents’ health and safety.
He has covered COVID-19 upticks in California with an emphasis on what rising case numbers mean for the coming season, tying infection trends to hospital capacity and public health responses. In stories on emergency room visits during heat waves, he reports on new dashboards that make heat-related deaths and ER visits available in near real time, and on tools such as CalHeatScore that score extreme heat risk to help officials prepare for more frequent and severe heat episodes. His coverage of hazardous industrial sites in L.A.
County explains a new county map that shows thousands of oil wells, industrial facilities, refineries, storage sites and legacy pollution locations, underscoring how many are located in and around residential communities. By bringing together environmental data, mapping tools and health metrics, Lin’s work shows how climate hazards, industrial exposure and public health systems intersect, especially for communities living near high-risk sites.
Across these strands, Lin’s reporting is characterized by frequent use of scientific experts, quantified forecasts and concrete timelines that tell people when and how hazards will arrive. He has reported for the Los Angeles Times since 2004, giving him long experience tracking how climate change, natural disasters and public health emergencies have evolved over time in California. His body of work offers a consistent, detailed picture of how statewide earthquake safety, extreme weather, coastal change and health risks fit together into California’s broader resilience story.
4 more environment journalists.
Alan Halaly
Alan Halaly is a water reporter at the Las Vegas Review-Journal who treats the Colorado River as a working system, not a backdrop, making its governance, infrastructure and risks central to his beat. He covers how policy decisions and infrastructure projects shape the region’s water future, linking high-level choices on the Colorado River, dams, mining and data centers to everyday consequences under mounting heat and growth pressures. He reports deeply on new laws, lawsuits and regulatory shifts, focusing on on-the-ground impacts. His coverage spans Colorado River cuts, Hoover Dam operations, extreme weather, heat and parks, septic system rules, workplace and public health risks, lithium and gold mines, protected landscapes, data centers, AI infrastructure and public funding. Previously he reported for metropolitan dailies, digital outlets and public media, including the Miami Herald, WUFT, The Daily Beast and Miami New Times, with work recognized by Hearst, ONA and the Society of Environmental Journalists.
Alejandra Borunda
Alejandra Borunda reports on how climate change affects human health for NPR. Her work treats global warming as a direct cause of physical and mental health risks. She covers extreme heat, including undercounted deaths, lost sleep and local efforts to track heat-related fatalities. She also reports on wildfire smoke, hurricanes, disease spread such as dengue fever, trauma, stress and unequal health impacts. Her stories examine how communities protect themselves and recover, as well as practical solutions involving climate-resilient crops, agriculture and diet. Before NPR, she wrote about climate science and environmental issues for National Geographic, including glacier retreat, shade and heat inequity, and shrinking ice-fishing seasons. A former climate scientist, she combines field reporting with scientific data to connect atmospheric research to everyday risks, choices and people’s lived experiences.
Alex Lubben
Alex Lubben is an environment reporter at The Times-Picayune/The Advocate who connects climate risk to policy, industry and community change. He covers Gulf warming, flood protection, coastal restoration, wetlands litigation, industrial projects such as SpaceX’s possible expansion, invasive species and local ecosystems. His reporting tracks how law, politics and corporate decisions shape levees, drainage, marshes and long-term resilience. He also examines climate relocation, housing and labor, showing how hurricanes, floods and wildfires displace vulnerable communities and expose gaps in government systems. He works on a small environment team and brings an investigative background to document work, data analysis, legal and policy research, and field reporting. His work has appeared in VICE News, The Center for Public Integrity, The Nation, Jewish Currents and NBC News.
Alex Wigglesworth
Alex Wigglesworth reports on how climate, land use and public policy shape California communities. She covers the Inland Empire and Mojave Desert for the Los Angeles Times and is part of its environment team. Her beat includes wildfires, megadrought, extreme weather, desert development, conservation, wildlife, industrial hazards, aging infrastructure and regulatory enforcement. She has covered Western Joshua trees, desert tortoises, beaver-led restoration, toxic lead pipes, air-quality concerns after industrial fires and the effects of nuclear war on food systems. Earlier, she was a general assignment reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com. She combines breaking news with detailed reporting grounded in scientific studies, modeling and expert interviews. Her work connects fires, drought and other hazards to climate change, while examining how agencies, companies and land-use decisions affect people and ecosystems.