Human Factors Explain the Increased Losses from Weather and Climate Extremes

Abstract Societal impacts from weather and climate extremes, and trends in those impacts, are a function of both climate and society. United States losses resulting from weather extremes have grown steadily with time. Insured property losses have trebled since 1960, but deaths from extremes have not grown except for those due to floods and heat waves. Data on losses are difficult to find and must be carefully adjusted before meaningful assessments can be made. Adjustments to historical loss data assembled since the late 1940s shows that most of the upward trends found in financial losses are due to societal shifts leading to ever—growing vulnerability to weather and climate extremes. Geographical locations of the large loss trends establish that population growth and demographic shifts are the major factors behind the increasing losses from weather—climate extremes. Most weather and climate extremes in the United States do not exhibit steady, multidecadal increases found in their loss values. Without majo...

[1]  Roger A. Pielke,et al.  Temporal Fluctuations in Weather and Climate Extremes That Cause Economic and Human Health Impacts: A Review , 1999 .

[2]  R. Pielke,et al.  Nine Fallacies of Floods , 1999 .

[3]  UNCOVERING THE: Hidden Costs OF Coastal Hazards , 1999 .

[4]  S. Changnon,et al.  Interactions Between the Atmospheric Sciences and Insurers in the United States , 1999 .

[5]  J. Houghton,et al.  Climate change 1995: the science of climate change. , 1996 .

[6]  H. Kunreuther,et al.  The hidden costs of coastal hazards: Implications for risk assessment and mitigation , 2000 .

[7]  S. A. Changnon,et al.  Record-High Losses for Weather Disasters in the United States During the 1990s: How Excessive and Why? , 1998 .

[8]  R. Pielke.  Rethinking the role of adaptation in climate policy , 1998 .

[9]  S. A. Changnon,et al.  Surrogate Data to Estimate Crop-Hail Loss , 1997 .

[10]  Thomas R. Karl,et al.  Secular Trends of Precipitation Amount, Frequency, and Intensity in the United States , 1998 .

[11]  S. A. Changnon,et al.  Evaluation of Weather Catastrophe Data for Use in Climate Change Investigations , 1998 .

[12]  Storm Warning , 1993 .

[13]  Richard T. Sylves,et al.  Disaster Management in the U.S. and Canada: The Politics, Policymaking, Administration and Analysis of Emergency Management , 1997 .

[14]  Gilbert F. White,et al.  The hidden costs of coastal hazards : implications for risk assessment and mitigation , 2000 .

[15]  R. J. Roth,et al.  Effects of Recent Weather Extremes on the Insurance Industry: Major Implications for the Atmospheric Sciences , 1997 .

[16]  Storm Warnings , 1879, Nature.

[17]  S. Changnon,et al.  Detection of changes in streamflow and floods resulting from climate fluctuations and land use-drainage changes , 1996 .

[18]  Shagufta,et al.  Disaster management. , 1989, BMJ.

[19]  R. Pielke,et al.  Normalized Hurricane Damages in the United States: 1925-95 , 1998 .

[20]  T. Karl,et al.  Drought and Natural Resources Management in the United States , 1991 .

[21]  Beth C. Reinke,et al.  Impacts and Responses to the 1995 Heat Wave: A Call to Action , 1996 .