Fascinating chart from the Re-insurance industry:nsurance industry of US Natural disasters:
>
Number of Events (January – June Only)
Source:
2011 Half-Year Natural Catastrophes Review USA
by Munich Re
August 25, 2011
Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.
"Money is power, & you ought to be reasonably ambitious to have it." —Russell H. Conwell, Temple Univ, 1877
"It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine" say the French as consumer confidence in May rose to the highest since Nov '10 as they welcome and get excited about new Pres Hollande. Also, the French 10 yr bond yield touched the lowest on record this morning. June consumer confidence in Germany held at 5.7, just .2 pts off the highest since Mar '11. To the euro bond debate which is now taking on greater rhetoric with those with high bond yields wanting them and those with low ones saying no way, ECB member...
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October 12th, 2011 at 2:48 pm
I’d like to see what is considered for an event to be categorized as a “natural disaster”. But looking at apples versus apples over the past 30 years, it’s hard to argue that our anecdotal observations are true; there is a lot more in the way of disasters now. At a time when we need it the least. I drive by the results of one such disaster each day (the path of the 4/27/11 Tornadoes in Alabama).
October 12th, 2011 at 2:59 pm
With the FEMA budget constantly under attack, don’t look for Uncle Sam to bail you out.
October 12th, 2011 at 3:11 pm
I wonder why the elections of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush weren’t on there. Those were the two greatest disasters of the last 30 year.
October 12th, 2011 at 3:14 pm
Any idea if these are reported event? Could this just mean that they have more clients?
October 12th, 2011 at 3:36 pm
Must be about time for an asteroid collision since astronomical events don’t even make the list.
October 12th, 2011 at 3:46 pm
Franklin411 nails it!!!
October 12th, 2011 at 4:20 pm
Franklin411: would those be ideological events?
October 12th, 2011 at 4:22 pm
No Julia, just the events that inflicted the greatest economic pain on the country. :)
October 12th, 2011 at 4:49 pm
Interesting, that climate events seem to reach a tipping point in 1985, and then increase very substantially [ orange ].
October 12th, 2011 at 5:00 pm
i’d agree, Franklin411 except for the fact that Obama has now surpassed Bush in being a really bad president for the following reasons:
1. With Bush at least we knew what to expect; with Obama is was all false hope and no change.
2. He broke almost all his campaign promises (no green job investment – save the Solyndra debacle, which was begun by Bush); expanded the wars; no prosecution of anybody for any wrongdoing (well, yeah, Madoff, but that’s basically it; i would have liked to at least have seen Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush at the Hague trying to explain themselves; Yu exiled to Siberia instead of teaching; and the long list of perps in the mortgage scandal on trial – for starters).
3. He had the chance to be as great as JFK but blew it – biggest disappointment at that level in my lifetime.
4. He’s abandoned his base (and some would argue his party too) and will have to struggle for re-election (as i’ve noted: he’s the modest moderate of the Republicans on the slate & there are no Democrats running in 2012).
5. He is a lousy politician (no spine; Capt. Cave-In; his idea of compromise is to give the other side everything they want up front and then bargain from there).
There are many more reasons, but you get the picture.
October 12th, 2011 at 5:15 pm
Climatically we’re just getting into the interesting stuff! Or as the Koch people would put it: “nothing to see here, move along, i’m sure you people have something better to do . . .” and “graphs lie!”
We didn’t pay attention when we should have been transitioning (starting in, oh, about 1970 or so would have been do-able) to another way to do energy/civilization, now it’s too late and it’s going to get a LOT worse in the coming years (and we’re still doing NOTHING – thanks Obama for your fine leadership!).
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/10/12/341615/record-heat-peanut-butter-prices/
“Scorching heat, especially in Texas, singed many peanut plants as they developed, leaving more peanuts destined to be processed into oil, rather than the edible quality that is shelled and turned into peanut butter. Only 38 percent of the US peanut crop was rated good or excellent last month, down from about 60 percent a year ago.”
Chocolate too is threatened; as are American beef cattle, French wine, Italian pasta and German beer.
i’ll leave overfishing and acidification (not to mention BP’s contributions) of the oceans to another post.
Hey, enjoy yourselves, it’s a nice day and you’re still alive.
October 12th, 2011 at 5:55 pm
Just glancing at this chart, I’m very skeptical. The orange which shows extreme temps drought and fire would lead one to belive that 1980 and 1988 were average years. Yet the summer of 1980 saw a massive heat wave and drought in the midwest as severe as the one this year in the southwest. 1988 saw a massive drought all across the upper US. That was a year of hugh wild fires all across the west including the one that burned much of Yellowstone.
I don’t know what it measures but I am certain it is untrustworthy for drawing any conclusions. Using bad data to support a belief does more harm than good.
Jack
October 12th, 2011 at 6:20 pm
whskyjack , well down here in Texas, we have had the worst drought ever recorded. and while we might not have made the days in a row over 100, we came in 2nd, and not really far back from 1980. but seems like we did exceed the total number of days over 100.
and we have had wild fires almost the entire summer.
and some are still going on
October 12th, 2011 at 6:55 pm
Willid3
that was my point not that one was worse than the other but they were at least equal and I think 1980 covered a bigger portion of the US but if it did or if it didn’t one would expect the orange to be larger for 1980 and 1988. But then I don’t know what it is measuring or where
Jack
October 12th, 2011 at 7:20 pm
Looks like it is measuring dollars, and maybe Europe and US, which means that increasing line lines up very well with increaseing wealth
October 12th, 2011 at 7:31 pm
Two notes:
1) Deaths from natural disasters World-wide have decreased dramatically from 10 deaths per million in the 70s to 2 deaths per million recently.
2)” To suggest that particular extreme weather events are evidence of climate change is not just wrong, but wrongheaded — every bit as much as the claims made during a particularly cold and snowy winter (or even several in a row) that such events somehow disprove climate change. Weather is not climate and short-term climate variability is not climate change.
The detection of changes in climate requires looking at actual data — and the data on tornadoes, large-scale river floods (in unaltered river basins), and landfalling hurricanes shows no evidence of trends in the direction of more extreme events. This should not be surprising, because even if we assume a strong signal in extreme events from human-caused climate change, the statistics suggest that it would take many decades, and probably longer, before such signals would be detected.
Given this context, claims that particular events can be attributed in a causal fashion to human emissions of greenhouse gases are simply unscientific if not fundamentally incoherent. It is true that overall damage from tornadoes, floods, and hurricanes has been increasing in recent decades. A recent literature review of extreme event impacts around the world found that everywhere that researchers have looked, this increase can be entirely explained by increasing value of property at risk and increasing exposures to these hazards.
Human-caused climate change is real and deserves effective policies in response. The making of claims that are scientifically unsupportable will not further that effort. ”
–Roger A. Pielke Jr., professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado
October 12th, 2011 at 8:18 pm
…the re-insurance industry publication…do ya think they have some skin in the game…to make the case for increased premiums…?
October 12th, 2011 at 9:02 pm
“Human-caused climate change is real”
What does ‘climate change’ mean today? Warming? Cooling? Pollution?
October 13th, 2011 at 12:38 am
Same thing it’s always meant, troll: Greater variance from the historical mean and std. dev.
Here’s a fun one for you, Mr. Climate Change Denier: What does “contract” mean today? Whatever AIG says it means, or are union contracts magically different?
October 13th, 2011 at 8:52 am
It should be obvious that the ability to collect and report disasters is the reason for the upward trend in the number.
If the table began in the year 1320, the reported events would number one, if any.
October 13th, 2011 at 9:22 am
i think rouleur’s point here is the most relevant. one of munich re’s lines of business is insurance products that focus on the risk of climate change, and solar panels. if we argue that ‘denier’ studies funded by big oil are biased, then we must also look askance at these numbers.
October 13th, 2011 at 10:15 am
Are we counting earthquakes caused by fracking?
Are those really “natural?”
October 13th, 2011 at 10:27 am
Rouleur says it, one wonders at the vested interest.
Rohdewarrior Pielke and many other Climate Scientists including Gavin Schmidt all say there is no link, nor any evidence for a link yet, based on any current data, between Extreme Weather events & Climate Change, natural or man-made.
October 13th, 2011 at 11:19 am
“Human-caused climate change is real and deserves effective policies in response. The making of claims that are scientifically unsupportable will not further that effort. ”
In other words, don’t believe your eyes, your wallet or your brain.
Ignore it, so you Lose Money, and the 1% continues to throw you under the bus, like they know “better”.
October 13th, 2011 at 5:16 pm
[...] – Natural disasters in the US since 1980. [...]
October 13th, 2011 at 8:39 pm
“What does ‘climate change’ mean today? Warming? Cooling? Pollution?
Unsympathetic Says:
Same thing it’s always meant, troll: Greater variance from the historical mean and std. dev.”
No troll; Mr. Ad Hominem.
A sincere question.
Change is constant; our collective knowledge base is not.
Recall “The Folly of Prediction”.
October 14th, 2011 at 8:18 pm
WhiskeyJack –
Can’t claim to be an expert, but the orange bars also include forest fires. While there were significant droughts in 1980 and 1988, because there were not notable droughts in the years preceding, I would doubt that many forest fires were concurrent. Moreover, prior to the past decade, I can’t remember us having any fires like those we’ve had recently, here in southern California.