Crossposted with TheGreenGrok.com.
Are 2011's weather-related disasters part of a long-term trend?
Looking back, many will recall 2011 as a momentous year. It sure seemed to be a doozie when it came to disasters. Hurricane Irene. The Joplin tornado. Floods in Mississippi. Fukushima. And so on. But how unusual was it really? And if it was, why? Did global warming have anything to do with it?
 Knowing when to act has been a subject of philosophy throughout the ages. Ben Franklin, a Founding Father, was keen on prevention. Shakespeare's Falstaff, not so much. When it comes to climate, whose book do you take a page out of? |
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports that:
A summary appearing in last week's edition of Nature (based on data collated by the reinsurance company Munich Re) showed that over the past 30 years the number of weather-related severe events has been on the rise. (See graph here.)
While tallying up the number of disasters in a given year may seem pretty straightforward, in practice it's not. Things can get complicated. For example: How to decide where to draw the line between a disaster and just a really bad event? With storms, for instance, a single person getting hit by lightning would be tragic but would hardly be categorized as a disaster. But what if 10 people were killed in a storm, or 100, or 500? At what point does something become a disaster?
To avoid the counting-threshold problem, analysts often turn to metrics that integrate across all events -- for example, the total damage costs (or alternatively the total insured losses) that natural disasters impose on the insurance industry in a given year.
And through that lens, 2011 was an unmitigated disaster for disasters, the most expensive year on record with damages soaring past 2005's previous record of $220 billion to a total of about $380 billion. It was also the insurance industry's most expensive year on record for natural disasters, with total insured losses of $105 billion.
However, if global warming is your concern, it's important to note that severe weather was not the only or even the main culprit for 2011 -- about two-thirds of the total damages and about half of the insured losses can be attributed to two non-weather-related disasters: New Zealand's February earthquake and Japan's earthquake and tsunami in April.
But counting dollars has its drawbacks too.
As we all know, things change -- populations grow, people move, new buildings are constructed in different places. And these changes tend to increase total damages as well as make insurance companies more vulnerable to losses from disasters. For example, Americans' flocking to coastal communities has undoubtedly significantly increased our susceptibility to losses from hurricanes.
This is a point that Roger Pielke has often made (see here and here), and it's one that a recent paper in Climatic Change by Fabian Barthel and Eric Neumayer of the London School of Economics appears to confirm. Analyzing worldwide losses from severe events over the past two decades, Barthel and Neumayer concluded [pdf] that in particular the socio-economic factor of the "accumulation of wealth in disaster-prone areas is ... by far the most important driver of future economic disaster damage." This suggests that even the billion-dollar threshold used by NOAA to track severe weather over time should be taken with a grain of salt.
But Barthel and Neumayer did not allow the confounding influence of socio-economic changes to stop them from trying to answer the question of whether or not disasters were on the rise.
To adjust "for the fact that a hazard event of equal strength will typically cause more damage nowadays than in past years," they normalized the losses from events over time by factoring out the effects of inflation, population growth, rising wealth per capita, and insurance penetration. After doing so, they found no evidence of a significant upward trend in losses from non-geophysical disasters globally over the 18-year period from 1990 to 2008. However, using data over a longer time period, they did find an upward trend for West Germany (from 1980 to 2008) and for the United States (from 1973 to 2008).
Specific weather-related events that contributed to this upward trend included convective storms (like flash floods and hail storms) and winter storms. The authors speculate that the absence of a trend in the global data may be an artifact of the short-term data set used -- because of the difficulties of teasing out a significant signal from inherently noisy data.
So it's by no means a slam dunk, but an argument can be made that extreme weather events are up at least in some parts of the world. Let's suppose that's true. Then why? Is global warming the culprit? Answering those questions is a whole lot harder than answering the question of whether severe weather events are on the rise.
On the one hand, our basic understanding of the way the climate system works suggests global warming plays a role in making weather more extreme. We expect more temperature extremes, more heavy storms and the floods they bring, and more severe droughts and the wildfires they bring.
But it's one thing to expect something and another to observe it. And, given the vagaries and randomness of weather, rigorously identifying the role of a long-term climate trend in fostering any single given event is extremely difficult. There's some hope for a statistical approach, similar to the sort used for predictions like "there's a 50 percent chance of rain," but that's very much a work in progress.
It seems like the recent past has delivered some strange weather. Is it part of a long-term trend? A trend due to global warming? If you require rigorous scientific evidence, the answer, at least today, is that we just don't know.
On that basis, some people seem content to sit back on the whole global-warming debate until we scientists can say we know for sure and answer those questions with rigorous nods yes. It's an approach that is perhaps encapsulated by the philosophy of Shakespeare's Falstaff who advises that "the better part of valor is discretion."
But there's also a philosophy that urges people to hedge their bets and act, even with incomplete knowledge. Think Ben Franklin's adage, "an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure."
Falstaff or Franklin? Choose your philosophy carefully -- in the case of global warming the world will have to live with it for decades to centuries, and in the words of songwriter Jerry Livingston, "that's a long, long time."
Follow Bill Chameides on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TheGreenGrok
Simon Napier-Bell: Save the World! Oh Dear, Do We Really Have To?
Prominent global warming "skeptics" including Roy Spencer (a climate scientist favored by "skeptics"), Ross McKitrick (economist and purported "hockey stick" slayer), and Joseph D'Aleo (weatherman / Icecap blog) preach that per the Bible God will protect us from global warming, along with other signatories of the Cornwall Alliance's "Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming":
http://www.cornwallalliance.org/blog/item/prominent-signers-of-an-evangelical-declaration-on-global-warming/
Roy Spencer is moreover on the Cornwall Alliance's Board of Advisers:
http://www.cornwallalliance.org/about/board-of-advisors/
More from the Cornwall Alliance For The Stewardship Of Creation on their belief that per Biblical prophesy God will protect us from global warming:
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The world is in the grip of an idea: that burning fossil fuels... is causing global warming that will be so dangerous that we must stop it by reducing our use...
We believe that idea... fails the tests of theology... with a worldview of the Earth and its climate system contrary to that taught in the Bible...
God’s wisdom, power, and faithfulness justify confidence that Earth’s ecosystems are robust and will, by God’s providence, accomplish the purposes He set for them.
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http://tinyurl.com/27murl6 (pdf)
intoleft: "MMGW [known in the science-based community as AGW] is a religion based in believe but no proof."
Science denier irony is eternal.
1. It adds more moisture to the atmosphere.
2. It makes some regions wetter, while making other regions dryer.
3. It adds heat energy to the atmosphere.
Heat drives storm formation. Moisture provides fuel. Differences in moisture and temperature increase the speed of winds which drive the storms. In short, global warming is a formula for much, much more severe weather.
On the other hand, it is difficult to know what to count.
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[W]eather-related events are generally on the rise... weather accounted for about 90% of the year’s 820 recorded natural disasters, which caused at least 27,000 deaths. These disasters include flooding in Thailand, a series of tornadoes that hit the United States Midwest and southern states last spring, and storms and extreme rainfall over parts of the Mediterranean in November.
Since 1980... the number of severe floods has almost tripled, and storms have nearly doubled, which insurance experts link, in part, to the impact of climate change (see ‘Catastrophe count’). “It would not seem plausible that climate change doesn’t play a role in the substantial rise in weather-related disasters,” says Ernst Rauch, head of Munich Re’s Corporate Climate Centre.
Climate scientists believe that the frequency and severity of extreme-weather events will increase as temperatures continue to rise.
http://www.nature.com/news/disaster-toll-tallied-1.9760
Yes, Belief is at the Heart of Modern "Climate Science", just the Medieval Church believed that the Earth was the centre of God's universe.
How did that theory work out, Pepsicola?
A. Because they are science deniers, of course.
“This paper describes the process followed to compute new sea level trends at another six ports, each with very discontinuous tide gauge records. In each case the tide gauge has previously only been used for precisely defining an historical local Mean Sea Level (MSL) datum. The process used involved a comparison of the old MSL datum with a newly defined datum obtained from sea level data covering the last decade. A simple linear trend was fitted between the two data points. Efforts were then made to assess possible bias in the results due to oceanographic factors such as the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle, and the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO). This was done by taking the longer time series from the four major ports and assessing the spatially coherent variability in annual sea level using the dominant principal component from an empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis. The average relative sea level rise calculated from these six newly derived trends was 1.7 ± 0.1 mm yr−1, a result that is completely consistent with the analysis of the long-term gauge records. Most importantly, it offers a relatively simple method of improving our knowledge of relative sea level trends in data sparse regions of the world.”
J. Geophys. Res., 117, C01004
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2011JC007591.shtml
Perhaps you could comment on the fact that the frequency of violent tornadoes (F3-F5) in the USA has declined since the 1970's and how that fact supports any suggestion that the current glorious and beneficial interglacial warming is causing more extreme weather events.
Thank you.
http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/tornado/tornadotrend.jpg
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/2011_tornado_information.html
Dear Orkneygal,
Isn't prominent global warming "skeptic" Dr. Robert M "Bob" Carter committing de facto global warming fraud by misrepresenting increasing global temperature trend lines as flat?*
Isn't that like a climate science scam, a global warming hoax, a blatant and indefensible lie?
If you disagree please provide a scientifically-valid explanation for Bob Carter's gross misrepresentation of scientific data.
Bob Carter is a leader of and/or major contributor to several of the most prominent organizations that are "skeptical" of man-made global warming, including:
* The Heartland Institute
* The Science & Public Policy Institute (SPPI)
* The Science & Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
* The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)
* The International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC)
Also:
You have indicated that you live in New Zealand - what relationship do you have with Bob Carter's global warming "skeptic" organization the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition (NZCSC)?
Please finally answer these questions instead of continuing to run away from them - thank you.
------------------
* http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2011/07/bob_carters_trend_lines.php
Yet, you continue to cut and paste, time after time, your tired, trite and mendacious defamation of Dr Carter.
One definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing and expecting a different result.
Orkneygal: "You have already admitted that your tactics are not getting you the results you seem to want."
You seem confused, Orkneygal. What in your mind seemingly gives you that impression?
Orkneygal: "Yet, you continue to cut and paste, time after time, your tired, trite and mendacious defamation of Dr Carter."
As you have repeatedly run away from addressing Bob Carter's de facto global warming fraud* with the excuse that you have "no interest" in his work, how is it that you somehow know that Bob Carter's gross misrepresentation of increasing global warming trends as flat* is not de facto fraud?
Do tell, Orkneygal - you keep running away from addressing that question too.
Orkneygal: "One definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing and expecting a different result."
You again seem confused, Orkneygal.
Your continued running away from addressing Bob Cartrr's de facto global warming fraud -- just as other so-called "skeptics" have done, including the Executive Director of the "skeptical" ICSC, which Bob Carter is the Chief Science Adviser of -- is exactly what I expect of you.
Real scientific skeptics address Bob Carter's de facto global warming fraud and in a scientifically-valid manner*; fake skeptics invariably run away from doing so.
HTH.
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* http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2011/07/bob_carters_trend_lines.php
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/07/13/bob-carter-does-his-business
Earth becomes more like Mars. Scientists are deeply concerned, the Earth can no longer sequester the heat trapping gases, a natural ecosystem service. The National Academy of scientists are shouting, the extinction of biological diversity is a threat to mankind and civilization, right up there with global, thermonuclear war. Other scientists maintain, Earth no longer supports historic levels of oxygen. The vast majority of scientists are crying about the upheaval of a scrambling climate, related to all the preceding unnatural, Earth shattering events, like deforestation of Earth's ecosystems heats up and dries out the climate, promoting desertification.
Regardless, of course man is killing the Earth's ability to create and sustain all life, but heay, why regard science when we have the brainwashed thinking of America dictating all societal voices? Voices illiterate in the science of ecology and the eco-nomy of all life, the breath of life itself.
I'll answer that question now.
Nope. There's no link. Nice try though, Bill.
A hotter climate dries out springs and waters, causes desertification, and scrambles global climate, globally. Or, the biological diversity that creates ecosystems and sustains them are being pushed extinct globally at a rate, 1,000 times higher than normal. Hello, is anyone on Earth awake and conscious?
Science is screaming. they have no analogues to all the unnatural, abnormal and deadly changes occurring globally -- unnaturally. Business is not normal on the earth. No analogues to articulate a changing, scrambling and most assuredly, dying Earth, inasmuch as the planet's ability to create and sustain all life, including man's!
Hello, anyone out there, conscious?
remember to breathe..
"As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval. However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age."
"Can violent hurricanes, floods and droughts be pinned on climate change? Scientists are beginning to say yes."
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110907/full/477148a.html
"It would not seem plausible that climate change doesn’t play a role in the substantial rise in weather-related disasters,” says Ernst Rauch, head of Munich Re’s Corporate Climate Centre.
http://www.nature.com/news/disaster-toll-tallied-1.9760
Nice try though, Junk.
Bad Economics at NOAA
". NOAA has been publishing information related to disasters that is extremely misleading and scientifically inaccurate.
.. NOAA's methodology has a serious flaw, as $1 billion does not mean the same thing today as it did in 1980. In fact, adjusting just for inflation means that $1 billion today would have been the equivalent of $400 million in 1980. And that is not all, because there has been considerable development across the nation since 1980, meaning that there is more property and wealth to be damaged, $1 billion in damage today is actually equivalent to about $170 million in 1980."- Roger Pielke Jr.
They fail to admit they are not using inflation adjusted figures. If they did use inflation adjusted numbers, they would have to then use Mike's Nature trick to hide the decline.
We note the use again of the denier term 'hide the decline.'
The denier crowd reduces all their issues to bumper sticker slogans. Makes it more emotional to them. Keeps them riled.
Proof by bumper sticker now.
What are the chances that Orkney could give an intelligent discussion of her issue here?
Further, there are additional oversights, such as recognizing that human wealth has increased over the past century. In the 1920s, the average house had only outdoor toilets. Also, the average house was smaller, and less expensive to replace. The average house wasn't wired for the electrical service we now take for granted.
Trying to do scientific climate research using economic data is very risky, filled with numerous problems subject to major errors. To be credible, scientists should stick to scientific data gained from scientific instruments.
Humanity converted over 100 cubic miles of FF's into it... No deny'n
Yet we have a solution, had it since the fifties..
It's called LFTR
However, Billions of tons of FF's and close to 100,000 tons of uranium needed to power humanity could be replaced by just 5,000 tons of thorium... with devastating loss of profits!
Therefore greed and conspiracy have the same end.
A solution would be to use that wonderful cheap and unlimited power in factories that make batteries and solar panels... a way for 'em to get there money back!
Space is the cold sink for the Earth "engine". It does not change temperature. about 4K absolute.
humans emit 200 times all the volcanoes in the world combined. Get real.
Besides, Oil wars, mountain top coal removal, and fracking water contamination plus the fossil heavy metals and mercury are reason enough to change to green energy.
Regular and tax heavy metals. That's a great proxy for CO2.
Got a problem with that? Of do you like heavy metals.
- It is easy to find papers referring to 'climate change' from the 1940s and 1950s. 'Global warming' didn't appear until the 1980s.
- The IPCC was organized in 1988, and the 'CC' doesn't stand for Cat Chow.
- The guy who REALLY popularized 'climate change' wasn't the dreaded liberal boogeymen, it was Republican media consultant Frank Luntz, who instructed Republicans to say 'climate change' because 'global warming' sounds frightening. Read page 142 of his memo:
http://www.ewg.org/files/LuntzResearch_environment.pdf
- Last but certainly not least, it hasn't stopped warming:
http://bit.ly/Aa0yce
If you have any interest in being truthful, you'll retire this one.
Higher sea surface temperatures, with the same stratospheric temperature - should make for more effective hurricane formation. Increased tropospheric shear might work the other way.
As long as C02 levels stay at this level (and they will not-) they will keep rising- it seems one can say that fires, droughts, 'roided' up storms, floods will continue- become the 'new norm' and become worse.