"While we cannot prevent future extreme weather events from occurring, we can do more to assess the risks of living in the new normal of climate-fueled disruptive weather and water events."

Yet while military leaders and other planners know that storm extremes are increasingly likely as the climate warms, we have not yet taken the steps we need to prepare ourselves for these events. For example, while defense strategy documents recognize climate change as a threat multiplier, plans for military construction and infrastructure do not yet fully account for increased flood and storm risk.

As we are tragically learning from Hurricane Harvey (and should have already learned from Superstorm Sandy and Katrina), extreme weather poses a massive national security risk not just overseas, but also here at home.

The military operates under a framework of risk preparedness every day and recognizes that it will never have 100 percent certainty about any threat it faces. That's why the DoD and all infrastructure planners need to integrate the range of probabilities associated with the impacts of climate change into all of its domestic infrastructure planning and risk assessments in order to increase resilience both at home and abroad.

While we cannot prevent future extreme weather events from occurring, we can do more to assess the risks of living in the new normal of climate-fueled disruptive weather and water events. We need to be planning today for the next event that will disrupt lives, safety, health and infrastructure at every level.

First, we need to use flood and other risk standards that reflect the higher temperatures, warmer waters, and more intense rainfall of the current era. The past is no longer sufficient to predict the new normal now that the reality of climate change is here.

Second, we need to ensure that our investments in infrastructure take into account a climate-threatened future. The Department of Defense is beginning to make this commitment, as evidenced by recent statements by Secretary of Defense Mattis and other senior DOD officials. And earlier this summer, a bipartisan vote in the House of Representatives defended a provision identifying climate change as a "direct threat to the national security of the United States."

The provision also requests a report from the Department of Defense on climate change risks to its mission and major military installations over the next 20 years. This is hopeful progress: because of bipartisan action in Congress, our military will be preparing plans to further resilience of both the force and military bases at risk of sea level rise, storm surge and coastal inundation.

Finally, our military is a crucial part of communities across the country-we can see this vividly in the valiant rescues underway by men and women in uniform in Houston. Both civilian and military communities need to come together in planning for future extreme weather events.

DOD's vibrant community partnering program is a great example of how the military can enable those serving to connect with their communities on a wide range of common issues, from health to environmental protections. Programs like these can help us assess risks today and prepare communities for devastating weather events of tomorrow.

We ignore these risks at our peril. Not only our national security, but our homeland, is at greater risk until we take the climate threat seriously.

Commentary by Sherri Goodman, a former deputy undersecretary of defense (Environmental Security), founder of the CNA Military Advisory Board, and Senior Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center.

For more insight from CNBC contributors, follow @CNBCopinion on Twitter.