[WaPo] The number of billion-dollar weather disasters in the United States has more than doubled in recent years, as devastating hurricanes and ferocious wildfires that experts suspect are fueled in part by climate change have ravaged swaths of the country, according to data released by the federal government Wednesday.More than doubled? From what, last year? Forecasts? Read on...
Since 1980, the United States has experienced 241 weather and climate disasters where the overall damage reached or exceeded $1 billion, when adjusted for inflation, according to data from the NOAA. Between 1980 and 2013, according to NOAA, the nation averaged roughly half a dozen such disasters a year. Over the most recent five years, that number has jumped to more than 12.
Oh, so recently, the number is twice the average? My word, that's terrifying!
NOAA said 14 separate weather and climate disasters hit the United States during 2018.
Climate disasters. I see what you did there.
The disasters killed at least 247 people and cost the nation an estimated $91 billion. The bulk of that damage, about $73 billion, was attributable to three events: Hurricanes Michael and Florence and the collection of wildfires that raged across the West.
Storms are weather. Wildfires not so directly related to weather, more to man-made forest management practices.
But the most recent numbers continue what some experts call an alarming trend toward an increasing number of billion-dollar disasters, fueled, at least in part, by the warming climate.Experts are alarmed? Top men in their field? Note we're now back to a warming climate.
Many factors contribute to the cost of any one disaster. For instance, a hurricane that hits a heavily populated area, such as Hurricane Sandy in 2012 or Hurricane Harvey in 2017, is likely to have a far higher economic impact than one that hits a less crowded part of the country. The nation's growing population, inconsistent building codes and the fact that many cities and infrastructure sit near coasts or along rivers also play a role.
Good place to stop, right there.
But increasingly, experts say, so does climate change.
There are also projections that the impact of climate change should soon be making itself felt in the cost of at least some disasters. A 2014 analysis by the Rhodium Group, for instance, projected that by 2030, the average damage from hurricanes and nor'easters, to the East and Gulf coasts in particular, should be $3 billion to $7.3 billion higher each year. That's if climate change continues unabated.
But if we spend $3-30 billion each year, we might be able to abate climate warming, and possibly avoid that potential damage. Newest math.