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Does climate change also explain the larger storms in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries? https://www.novec.com/About_NOVEC/Virginias-Historic-Snowstorms.cfm h

Does climate change also explain the larger storms in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries? https://www.novec.com/About_NOVEC/Virginias-Historic-Snowstorms.cfm https://www.novec.com/About_NOVEC/Virginias-Historic-Snowsto...

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Animats 5y ago
UN: "In the period 2000 to 2019, there were 7,348 major recorded disaster events claiming 1.23 million lives, affecting 4.2 billion people (many on more than one occasion) resulting in approximately US$2.97 trillion in global economic losses. This is a sharp increase over the previous twenty years. Between 1980 and 1999, 4,212 disasters were linked to natural hazards worldwide claiming approximately 1.19 million lives and affecting 3.25 billion people resulting in approximately US$1.63 trillion in economic losses. Much of the difference is explained by a rise in climate-related disasters including extreme weather events: from 3,656 climate-related events (1980-1999) to 6,681 climate-related disasters in the period 2000-2019. The last twenty years have seen the number of major floods more than double, from 1,389 to 3,254, while the incidence of storms grew from 1,457 to 2,034. Floods and storms were the most prevalent events." [1] https://www.undrr.org/publication/human-cost-disasters-overview-last-20-years-2000-2019 https://www.undrr.org/publication/human-cost-disasters-overv...
- kbutler 5y ago
  Sounds really conclusive, doesn't it? If you look a bit deeper at the statistics, this database "records disasters which have killed ten or more people; affected 100 or more people; resulted in a declared state of emergency, or a call for international assistance." What factors besides frequency and severity of weather events could affect these statistics? Most obvious are population growth (doubled over that period) and increased urbanization (reversed from 60:40 primarily rural, to 60:40 primarily urban). This means that an event with the same severity is greatly more likely to be reported and included in this database. Similarly for economic effects - because of the growth in assets, infrastructure, and GDP, that doubling of economic losses, even if in constant dollars, represents a decrease in losses relative to total assets. So this data doesn't really represent a measure of change in the weather as much as change in human society (and the page is titled, "The human cost...") The IPCC report is somewhat equivocal about change in the actual heavy precipitation events, stating "the frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation have likely increased...with increases in more regions than there are decreases". (with "likely" meaning > 2/3 probability) Roger Pielke, Jr., has done a lot of work on extreme weather events: https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/how-to-understand-the-new-ipcc-report-1e3 https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/how-to-understand-the-n...
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  I believe in climate change, but hate when people trot out these poor arguments every time a weather event occurs. Not every storm is or can be caused by climate change, and average weather occurs in a minuscule amount of the time. even without climate change, 50% of the times it will be more than the average, or 50% it will be less. Similarly, your data shows a doubling of events in 20 years, which is completely outside the range of predictions and models from actual climate scientists. I get that the intention is good, but poor arguments only pollute discourse.
InitialLastName 5y ago
It could certainly explain the increased density of such snowstorms in the late 20th and early 21st.
s1artibartfast 5y ago
>Jan. 16-18, 1857: The Great Blizzard’s foot of snow and wind wrecked ships at sea and almost buried Norfolk under 20-foot snowdrifts. Virginia’s rivers froze. At the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, one could walk from the lighthouse 100 yards on the frozen Atlantic. Amazing... It really puts a 14 inch snowstorm into perspective.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Animats 5y ago

UN: "In the period 2000 to 2019, there were 7,348 major recorded disaster events claiming 1.23 million lives, affecting 4.2 billion people (many on more than one occasion) resulting in approximately US$2.97 trillion in global economic losses. This is a sharp increase over the previous twenty years. Between 1980 and 1999, 4,212 disasters were linked to natural hazards worldwide claiming approximately 1.19 million lives and affecting 3.25 billion people resulting in approximately US$1.63 trillion in economic losses. Much of the difference is explained by a rise in climate-related disasters including extreme weather events: from 3,656 climate-related events (1980-1999) to 6,681 climate-related disasters in the period 2000-2019. The last twenty years have seen the number of major floods more than double, from 1,389 to 3,254, while the incidence of storms grew from 1,457 to 2,034. Floods and storms were the most prevalent events." [1] https://www.undrr.org/publication/human-cost-disasters-overview-last-20-years-2000-2019 https://www.undrr.org/publication/human-cost-disasters-overv...

kbutler 5y ago
Sounds really conclusive, doesn't it? If you look a bit deeper at the statistics, this database "records disasters which have killed ten or more people; affected 100 or more people; resulted in a declared state of emergency, or a call for international assistance." What factors besides frequency and severity of weather events could affect these statistics? Most obvious are population growth (doubled over that period) and increased urbanization (reversed from 60:40 primarily rural, to 60:40 primarily urban). This means that an event with the same severity is greatly more likely to be reported and included in this database. Similarly for economic effects - because of the growth in assets, infrastructure, and GDP, that doubling of economic losses, even if in constant dollars, represents a decrease in losses relative to total assets. So this data doesn't really represent a measure of change in the weather as much as change in human society (and the page is titled, "The human cost...") The IPCC report is somewhat equivocal about change in the actual heavy precipitation events, stating "the frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation have likely increased...with increases in more regions than there are decreases". (with "likely" meaning > 2/3 probability) Roger Pielke, Jr., has done a lot of work on extreme weather events: https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/how-to-understand-the-new-ipcc-report-1e3 https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/how-to-understand-the-n...
s1artibartfast 5y ago
I believe in climate change, but hate when people trot out these poor arguments every time a weather event occurs. Not every storm is or can be caused by climate change, and average weather occurs in a minuscule amount of the time. even without climate change, 50% of the times it will be more than the average, or 50% it will be less. Similarly, your data shows a doubling of events in 20 years, which is completely outside the range of predictions and models from actual climate scientists. I get that the intention is good, but poor arguments only pollute discourse.

InitialLastName 5y ago

It could certainly explain the increased density of such snowstorms in the late 20th and early 21st.

s1artibartfast 5y ago

>Jan. 16-18, 1857: The Great Blizzard’s foot of snow and wind wrecked ships at sea and almost buried Norfolk under 20-foot snowdrifts. Virginia’s rivers froze. At the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, one could walk from the lighthouse 100 yards on the frozen Atlantic. Amazing... It really puts a 14 inch snowstorm into perspective.