Rebecca Hersher Rebecca Hersher is a reporter on NPR's Climate Desk.
Rebecca Hersher at NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C., July 25, 2018. (photo by Allison Shelley) (Square)
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Rebecca Hersher

Allison Shelley/NPR
Rebecca Hersher at NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C., July 25, 2018. (photo by Allison Shelley)
Allison Shelley/NPR

Rebecca Hersher

Correspondent, Climate Desk

Rebecca Hersher (she/her) is a reporter on NPR's Climate Desk, where she reports on climate science, weather disasters, infrastructure and how humans are adapting to a hotter world.

Since coming to NPR in 2011, she has covered the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, embedded with the Afghan army after the American combat mission ended and reported on floods, heat waves and hurricanes in the U.S. and around the world.

Hersher was part of the NPR team that won a Peabody award for coverage of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, and produced a story from Liberia that won an Edward R. Murrow award for use of sound. Her 2019 coverage of climate-driven flash floods also won an Edward R. Murrow award, and she was part of a team that was honored with a 2020 Society of News Design award for multimedia storytelling. She was a finalist for the 2017 Daniel Schorr prize; a 2017 Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting fellow, reporting on sanitation in Haiti; and a 2015 NPR Above the Fray fellow, investigating the causes of the suicide epidemic in Greenland.

Before coming to the Climate Desk, Hersher worked for NPR's Science Desk, was a producer on Weekend All Things Considered and covered biomedical news for Nature Medicine.

Story Archive

Thursday

Early morning hikers rest before walking down Piestewa Peak, a city park in Phoenix, Ariz. El Niño makes a record-breaking average annual temperature for Earth more likely. Ryan Kellman/NPR hide caption

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Ryan Kellman/NPR

Thursday

A resident bails water from a flooded home in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Catano, Puerto Rico in 2017. Climate change is making hurricanes more dangerous. Carlos Giusti/AP hide caption

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Carlos Giusti/AP

How to prepare for the 2023 hurricane season with climate change in mind

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Wednesday

Storm surge from hurricanes is deadly. New computer models can better forecast it

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Some of the fastest sea level rise in the world is happening in Galveston, Texas. Ryan Kellman/NPR hide caption

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Ryan Kellman/NPR

Thursday

Water surrounds damaged homes in Lafourche Parish, La., after Hurricane Ida in 2021. Many people in Louisiana are still recovering from past hurricanes as this year's hurricane season gets underway. "Anytime we have a community that is still going through a recovery from a previous storm, it just makes them that much more vulnerable," says FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell. Steve Helber/AP hide caption

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Steve Helber/AP

NOAA predicts a 'near-normal' hurricane season. But that's not good news

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Tuesday

Typhoon Mawar approaches the U.S. territory of Guam on Tuesday, May 23, 2023. NASA/AP hide caption

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NASA/AP

Climate change makes Typhoon Mawar more dangerous

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Damage from Hurricane Ian near Pine Island, Fla., in 2022. The storm caused at least $50 billion in insured damage. Gerald Herbert/AP hide caption

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Gerald Herbert/AP

Insurance firms need more climate change information. Scientists say they can help

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Saturday

NPR's climate reporters on how climate change is causing ice caps to disappear

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Wednesday

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The race to protect people from dangerous glacial lakes

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Students at the Rolwaling Sangag Choling Monastery School in Beding take a break to play volleyball in the afternoon sun. Climate change is affecting the everyday lives of residents in Beding, Nepal. Snow and glaciers are melting around the high-altitude Himalayan town, and the melting coupled with more variable rainfall means river flooding is an ever-growing threat. Ryan Kellman/NPR hide caption

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Ryan Kellman/NPR

Melting glaciers threaten millions of people. Can science help protect them?

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Monday

Galveston, Texas, has some of the fastest sea level rise in the world. To protect the city, engineers need to know how fast ice in West Antarctica will melt. Ryan Kellman/NPR hide caption

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Ryan Kellman/NPR

How disappearing ice in Antarctica threatens the U.S.

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Why melting ice sheets and glaciers are affecting people thousands of miles away

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Monday

The message from a U.N. climate report is dire: Humans must cut pollution quickly

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Residents in southern Malawi repair a home destroyed by heavy rain from Cyclone Freddy. Climate change is causing cyclones and hurricanes to get more intense and dangerous. Thoko Chikondi/AP hide caption

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Thoko Chikondi/AP

Cut emissions quickly to save lives, scientists warn in a new U.N. report

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The United Nations is expected to issue a major new climate change report

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Wednesday

Sequential hurricanes are becoming more common because of climate changes

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Monday

Debris along a canal in Fort Myers Beach, Fla., one week after Hurricane Ian. A new study warns that hurricanes are getting more dangerous because of climate change. Rebecca Blackwell/AP hide caption

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Rebecca Blackwell/AP

Thursday

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Thursday

An oil pumpjack works in the Permian Basin oil field in Stanton, Texas. The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed a new way to evaluate the cost to humanity of emitting greenhouse gases. Joe Raedle/Getty Images hide caption

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Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Wednesday

Residents of southwest Pakistan move through floodwaters in September 2022. People with less wealth are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change, including more severe rainstorms. Fareed Khan/AP hide caption

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Fareed Khan/AP

Saturday

The EPA is updating its most important tool for cracking down on carbon emissions

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