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What a Disaster !

Apparently, there’s no link between mounting insurance losses from natural disasters and manmade Climate Change :-

https://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/study-finds-no-link-tying-disaster-losses-to-human-driven-warming/

Well, that’s alright then, I can just forget all about Global Warming and go and focus on something more important instead.

Thanks Andy Revkin for lightening my load, and releasing oceans of deep joy into my life :-

“Study Finds No Link Tying Disaster Losses to Human-Driven Warming : By ANDREW C. REVKIN : The pull of the “ front-page thought” and the eagerness of climate campaigners to jog the public have sometimes created a tendency to tie mounting losses from weather-related disasters to human-driven global warming. But finding a statistically robust link between such disasters and the building human climate influence remains a daunting task. A new analysis of nearly two dozen papers assessing trends in disaster losses in light of climate change finds no convincing link. The author concludes that, so far, the rise in disaster losses is mainly a function of more investments getting in harm’s way as communities in places vulnerable to natural hazards grow. The paper — “Have disaster losses increased due to anthropogenic climate change?” — is in press in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. It was written by Laurens M. Bouwer, a researcher at Vrije University in Amsterdam focused on climate and water resources (and a lead author of a chapter in the 2001 assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)…”

There’s a meme creeping between journalists like a naughty “Chinese” whisper – they can’t bring themselves to admit publicly that Climate Change is having an impact, now, in quite a few countries simultaneously.

The risk of being caught out saying that any one particular extreme weather event is caused by Global Warming. Oh, the shame ! Oh, the presumption ! Switch to “Andy Revkin-style” denial-at-one-remove, at every opportunity, and don’t check the credentials and history of the authors of the research papers or their citations very closely.

No. You can’t say that one particular extreme weather event is directly and solely caused by Global Warming or Climate Change.

But what about a synthesis, a congruence, a confluence of utter crises ? What are the odds of that ?

https://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2010/08/when-it-rains-it-pours.html

And what about the trends ? And the unusual overall patterns ?

Trouble with the Arctic Oscillation apparently caused a “blocking” of the air systems over Russia caused a massive heatwave and wildfires there – and took part in the massive flooding in Pakistan, and meanwhile, huge cyclonic storms, enormous near-Typhoons swept in from the La Nina-ised Pacific to wipe out China with a huge deluge, and I can confidently project that now the weather circulation has resumed in the Northern Hemisphere that there will be extensive flooding in Northern Europe towards winter, and probably on the American Eastern Seaboard, too. Meanwhile, in an Arctic Ocean not far from you, there’s virtually no sea ice left :-

And nothing’s happening ? Nothing at all unusual ?

Hang on….let’s quote the draft paper :-

https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2010BAMS3092.1

“Conclusions : The analysis of twenty-two disaster loss studies shows that economic losses from various weather related natural hazards, such as storms, tropical cyclones, floods, and small-scale weather events such as wildfires and hailstorms, have increased around the globe. The studies show no trends in losses, corrected for changes (increases) in population and capital at risk, that could be attributed to anthropogenic climate change. Therefore it can be concluded that anthropogenic climate change so far has not had a significant impact on losses from natural disasters.”

That’s “economic losses”, then, not “losses”.

Trouble is, a large amount of the significant losses are in places where there isn’t much wealth, so they won’t figure on the insurance costs radar.

Or will they ?

https://www.swissre.com/rethinking/climate/Turbulent_tropics_securing_climate-resilient_development_in_the_Caribbean.html

The insurance majors are factoring in what happens to poor countries and regions as well as wealthier ones. Why’s that ? Because a very large amount of raw resources and food come from poor countries…

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