Guest post by Indur M. Goklany
Summary
Proponents of drastic curbs on greenhouse gas emissions claim that such emissions cause global warming and that this exacerbates the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, including extreme heat, droughts, floods and storms such as hurricanes and cyclones. But what matters is not the incidence of extreme weather events per se but the impact of such events—especially the human impact. To that end, it is instructive to examine trends in global mortality (i.e. the number of people killed) and mortality rates (i.e. the proportion of people killed) associated with extreme weather events for the 111-year period from 1900 to 2010.
Aggregate mortality attributed to all extreme weather events globally has declined by more than 90% since the 1920s, in spite of a four-fold rise in population and much more complete reporting of such events. The aggregate mortality rate declined by 98%, largely due to decreased mortality in three main areas:
- Deaths and death rates from droughts, which were responsible for approximately 60% of cumulative deaths due to extreme weather events from 1900–2010, are more than 99.9% lower than in the 1920s.
- Deaths and death rates for floods, responsible for over 30% of cumulative extreme weather deaths, have declined by over 98% since the 1930s.
- Deaths and death rates for storms (i.e. hurricanes, cyclones, tornados, typhoons), responsible for around 7% of extreme weather deaths from 1900–2008, declined by more than 55% since the 1970s.
To put the public health impact of extreme weather events into context, cumulatively they now contribute only 0.07% to global mortality. Mortality from extreme weather events has declined even as all-cause mortality has increased, indicating that humanity is coping better with extreme weather events than it is with far more important health and safety problems.
The decreases in the numbers of deaths and death rates reflect a remarkable improvement in society’s adaptive capacity, likely due to greater wealth and better technology, enabled in part by use of hydrocarbon fuels. Imposing additional restrictions on the use of hydrocarbon fuels may slow the rate of improvement of this adaptive capacity and thereby worsen any negative impact of climate change. At the very least, the potential for such an adverse outcome should be weighed against any putative benefit arising from such restrictions.
The full study with diagrams is here, courtesy of the Reason Foundation. The press release, Extreme Weather Events Are Killing Fewer People Than Ever Before,
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Another reason for the trend… the fact that we can remotely detect extreme weather events these days. Every typhoon spinning about in the South Pacific, every tornado wiping prairie dogs in the middle of nowhere, every lighting induced brush fire burning in the remotest Siberia. 80 years ago if you knew about a weather induced disaster it was most likley because it killed a bunch a people.
Oh yea, weather sattelites, radars, TVs, radios,all brought to you by fossil fuels. Without fossil fuels we never would have had the resources to invent nuclear power. Heck, we probably wouldn’t even have been able to prodice a radio with which to listen to NPR!
Got the new National Geograhic a couple days ago, an article attempting to cast the great warming of the Paleocene/Eocene (I think) an as analogue to AGW. Unwitting the artile makes me want to shout, full steam ahead.
The main thrust is that climate models (of course, and of course the “most conservative we have) theorize that 4 billion cubic tons of CO2 caused the earth 50 odd million years ago to raise 9 degrees celcius over tens of thousands to millions years. We’ve used 300 million cubic tons in human’s history, and the author speculates we have another 3.7 BILLION cubic tons of fossil fuels still in the earth. (NOTE: I assume these numbers are run using the complicated model called PANOYA – pick a number out of your a**).
Sooooo… we have 90% of the fossil fuels on earth still in the ground, and burning them up over say the next 500 years will result in a 9 degree temprature rise in, worst case scenario, 13,000 to 14,000 AD? Really. Why am I not shuddering?
Don’t these guys realize that these “massive” climate shifts occur over a breif peroid in geologic time, not human time? This article talks about 75 degree water at the poles and 60 degree water at the bottom of the ocean. This would take tens of thousands of years at the absolute worst possible scenario. Given 1000s of years prep time I’m pretty sure we can handle it.
Oh yea, the NG article goes on to claim that parts of the middle lats, including the souther US will be experiencing 100+ degree average tempratures, night and day, summer and winter. I would like to know exactly what situation this might occur under short of the sun deciding to wander a couple million miles closer to us and the earth atmosphere changing composition miraculously.
Please excuse my horrendous spelling today. Brian moves faster than digits.
Yes, that’s right, Brian. *sigh*
>> izen says:
September 26, 2011 at 6:45 am
Peak oil was reached around 2007, production has varied by less than 3% since then. <<
You don't think that might have just had a little to do with a worldwide recession starting in 2008?
@- Smokey says: September 26, 2011 at 8:30 am
“Wrong as usual, Izen. There is NO evidence that the increase in CO2 – a tiny trace gas – has resulted in any “detriment” to agriculture. ”
I did not claim that CO2 was directly detrimental to agricultural systems, but that the changes it may cause to the climate could be. Most of our agricultural methods are based on an assumption that temperature/rainfall conditions are relatively stable. This is why a flood or drought, any extreme away from the median tends to drastically reduce crop yields.
“Rather than re-posting lots of confirming evidence, here[-link-] is just one real-world university experiment that shows the benefits of more CO2. If your mind is so made up that you can’t be bothered to read the whole thing, then just read the “Key Findings”.”
I always read evidence presented by others that they claim refutes my POV. Thats why I come to a site that differs from my understanding of the subject – I am looking to test that understanding.
That is an interesting piece of research, especially as it is using FACE technology – (Free Air Concentration Enrichment). It is certainly a positive result, and may well be a factor in increasing crop yields. It may even offset some of the negative effects of reduced rainfall that has been projected for some areas that are at present important agricultural regions. However, no amount of CO2 enhancement is going to offset the sort of intense and persistent drought that was predicted, and is now being seen in Texas and other areas of the American SW.
As Chinese studies have indicated, the quality of the crops may deteriorate as yields increase, carbohydrate tends to increase at the expense of protein content.
There is also the adaption required as growing regions move pole-ward that the associated agricultural infrastructure has to be moved to follow.
“Spreading your lies and disinformation may work on other blogs, but you run up against the truth on the internet’s “Best Science” site. The truth wins, and your lies lose.”
I think you might find it hard to find a validating example to support your contention I spread ‘lies’. I would suggest even an example of ‘disinformation’ would be hard to establish…
The ‘TRUTH’ you have presented here rather obviously does NOT respond or engage with the point I made that it is changes in CLIMATE that might affect agricultural systems. That crop yields may be improved by higher atmospheric CO2 does nothing to address the issue of the climate effects of increased GHGs.
However the main point I was making in my post was that the finite nature of fossil fuel, and general agreement that burning it causes climate change, contradict the claim that we must persist with business as usual because it is fossil fuel use that has reduced the disaster mortality rate. Modern, technological rich societies are possible with much lower levels of fossil fuel use as France shows.
And as other posters have indicated the death rate has as much to do with the type of government and the policies it pursues when faced with famine, flood and pestilence.
You response highlighting the experiments on enhanced CO2 agricultural effects in an environment with near optimal temperatures and rainfall are interesting… but they don’t really engage with the subject of the thread or my post do they?
@- Tom_R says: September 26, 2011 at 11:30 am
Re:-“”Peak oil was reached around 2007″”
“You don’t think that might have just had a little to do with a worldwide recession starting in 2008?”
Do you mean as cause… or effect ?
Actually I got the year wrong, most authorities identify 2006 as the peak year –
http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2010-11-11/iea-acknowledges-peak-oil
And as cause, (no increase in oil production+rising prices) precedes effect (worldwide recession)….?
The major conclusion is that human beings not only have adapted to their conditions, but have turned it to their greater advantage. Look deeper into the extreme weather events (or earthquakes for that matter) Usually the worst death tolls are in the poorer countries. (Not withstanding hurricane Katrina and the Japenese Tsunami). This is also true of deaths from disease (especially malaria) or deaths from famine.
The conclusion is that even if it can be demonstrated that climate disruption is destabilising the climate (that is a big IF), policies that slow down economic growth are likely to cause far greater deaths and human suffering than the all the extreme weather. It is truly a case of the the “cure being worse than the disease”.
Izen:
I apologize for calling you a liar, that was wrong. I’ll stick with disinformation. You may truly believe that CO2 will cause runaway global warming, but there is no evidence it’s happening despite a ≈45% rise. All the predictions have been wrong, so to conclude that the next prediction is right avoids reality. You say:
“Most of our agricultural methods are based on an assumption that temperature/rainfall conditions are relatively stable. This is why a flood or drought, any extreme away from the median tends to drastically reduce crop yields.”
If anyone constantly adapts to change, it is farmers. And to assign blame to CO2 for every change in local climates is the argumentum ad ignorantium fallacy: “Since we can’t think of another reason for these events, then they must be due to CO2.” Six thousand years ago the Sahara was verdant. Now it’s a desert. Did CO2 cause that? No. And CO2 is not causing the current, entirely routine storms and droughts. It is completely unscientific to make that conjecture without testable real world evidence. You also say:
“…no amount of CO2 enhancement is going to offset the sort of intense and persistent drought that was predicted, and is now being seen in Texas and other areas of the American SW.
As Chinese studies have indicated, the quality of the crops may deteriorate as yields increase…” &etc.
There is zero evidence that CO2 caused the Texas drought. Texas has had worse droughts in living memory – when CO2 levels were a lot lower. And the Gobi desert has been expanding toward Beijing for hundreds of years. It is now only about sixty miles away. CO2 didn’t start that process, either. I think it is
dishonestdisinformation to claim that human CO2 emissions cause droughts, without verifiable proof. And BTW, the FACE study shows that there is no loss of nutrition from more CO2. That directly contradicts the [unnamed] Chinese study you referenced. And which one would you believe, anyway?I’ll wrap up with a comment from gene watson on another thread:
“What direct factual evidence is there that human activity has had or is having any detectable impact on global climate? The Scientific Method requires that any such hypothesis must be supported by direct fact-based evidence if it is to gain credibility. With the continuing absence of such evidence, the AGW hypothetical remains mere conjecture. That no such evidence exists is established by analogy to Sherlock Holmes’ “the dog that didn’t bark” proof. If such evidence existed, the alarmist community along with their supporters in the main-stream media would be shouting (barking) it from every podium.”
@- manicbeancounter says: September 26, 2011 at 12:51 pm
“The conclusion is that even if it can be demonstrated that climate disruption is destabilising the climate (that is a big IF), policies that slow down economic growth are likely to cause far greater deaths and human suffering than the all the extreme weather. It is truly a case of the the “cure being worse than the disease”.”
The hypothesis advanced –
-‘policies that slow down economic growth are likely to cause far greater deaths and human suffering than the all the extreme weather’-
Is obviously true unless weather becomes so extreme that it exceeds the resilience that wealth confers to societies.
But it is unclear that reducing fossil fuel use IS a policy that would slow down economic growth.
Either peak oil and the rise in energy prices has had little effect on the economic growth rate – in which case alternatives comparable with ‘expensive’ oil would have little effect on economic growth.
Or peak oil, the search for alternatives to supply the economic growth to the majority of the poorer global population IS a factor in the recessions and depressions that have had the major impact on economic growth rates; in which case the search for viable alternatives looks even more urgent….
@- Smokey says: September 26, 2011 at 2:23 pm
“If anyone constantly adapts to change, it is farmers. And to assign blame to CO2 for every change in local climates is the argumentum ad ignorantium fallacy:”
I certainly would not argue that CO2 is to blame for every problem that farmers face, or that it is of no benefit. The link you provided about the yield gains in soya and corn was interesting…, like a bikini, but the actual papers the researchers have published reveal more. –
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-3040.2006.01581.x/full
Hourly and seasonal variation in photosynthesis and stomatal conductance of soybean grown at future CO2 and ozone concentrations for 3 years under fully open-air field conditions
for instance –
“Additionally, the crop experienced a hailstorm that destroyed > 50% of the plant canopy on 14 July 2003 (Morgan et al. 2005). ”
Clearly CO2 isn’t the only influence on crop yields!
“There is zero evidence that CO2 caused the Texas drought. Texas has had worse droughts in living memory – when CO2 levels were a lot lower. ”
What year ?
Actually the best estimate gives CO2 a role in making the present conditions about 30% worse than they would otherwise be. This is a nice analysis by John N-G, the Texas meteorologist –
http://blog.chron.com/climateabyss/2011/08/texas-drought-spot-the-outlier/
“I’ll wrap up with a comment from gene watson on another thread:
“What direct factual evidence is there that human activity has had or is having any detectable impact on global climate? “….
Yes, you have asked this before, as have others, and I have replied before with the energy imbalance measured from DWLR and TOA emissions and SST. –
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009JD012105.shtml
An observationally based energy balance for the Earth since 1950
We examine the Earth’s energy balance since 1950, identifying results that can be obtained without using global climate models.
The measured energy changes exist. Calling them ‘natural variation’ or ‘entierly routine’ is not an explanation for the MEASURED accumulation of energy.
I have a coherent scientific explanation that goes back through a century of testing and counter-argument. The spectral changes in the energy flows identify CO2 as a key component of the measured changes.
You have…. handwaving about clouds and cosmic rays with no solid supporting data.
Or at best, exhortations that climate sensitivity may not be as high as most scientists think… which leaves you with the problem of explaining what source of change even greater than the CO2 energy flux is driving the observed changes in SSTs. (ice, land temps, humidity, spring snow cover, growing seasons and regions, ocean pH changes….)
@- Smokey
A postscript – from the same research group you originally linked too….
http://www.plantphysiol.org/content/140/2/779.full.pdf
Photosynthesis, Productivity, and Yield of Maize Are Not
Affected by Open-Air Elevation of CO2 Concentration in
the Absence of Drought
While increasing temperatures and altered soil moisture arising from climate change in the next 50 years are projected to decrease yield of food crops, elevated CO2 concentration CO2 is predicted to enhance yield and offset these detrimental factors. ….
The 2004 season had ideal growing conditions in which the crop did not experience water stress. In the absence of water stress, growth at elevated CO2 did not stimulate photosynthesis, biomass, or yield. ….
The results provide unique field evidence that photosynthesis and production of maize may be unaffected by rising CO2 in the absence of drought. This suggests that rising CO2 may not provide the full dividend to North American maize production anticipated in projections of future global food supply.
Dodgy Geezer,
Thanks for the reply. I have no problem with the term ‘alarmist’; I am alarmed, so it suits me. 🙂
I agree that subsidies distort the market. I would like all subsidies removed. However, that still does not solve the issue of environmental damage that is not factored into the costs of various products. This either has to be addressed by regulation, as in the case of it being illegal – for example – to dump mercury into rivers, forcing producers [and then consumers] to pay for its safe disposal. Or it has to be addressed by imposing a cost – allowing people to damage the environment provided that they pay to fix it up.
Both of these approaches have their difficulties. For the second one, the issue is: how do we measure in dollars the cost to the environment, particularly if the damage is not immediate but will occur gradually over time? And what if people disagree on the amount of damage (for example, you believe more CO2 provides a benefit; I believe that more CO2 will be not good). For the first one, making something illegal may have obvious and immediate negative consequences – in the case of CO2, rapid deindustrialisation.
I favour the first solution. Disagreement over the costs can be resolved via the political process, with that being informed by the science. If, for example, more evidence emerged of the damage, the price would shift upwards as more people came to accept that. And if evidence emerged to the contrary, the price would shift downwards likewise.
Izen says:
“…projected to decrease… predicted to enhance…” Thanx for the models and predictions. You do know that they’re almost always completely wrong, don’t you?
Unfortunately for your arguments, the planet does not agree with the models or with your putative “evidence” [which is not evidence at all of global harm from CO2].
Since you’re obviously trying to pick apart the FACE study, here are some simpler links and graphics that debunk the notion that more CO2 is somehow bad [despite the absence of ANY global harm as a result of enhanced CO2]:
click1
click2
click3
click4
click5
Got more if you want ’em.
Nitpick away!☺
I meant to say: I favour the second solution, not the first solution. Oops …
izen says:
September 26, 2011 at 3:35 pm
re; Texas drought
You don’t understand statistics. If our annual rainfall record goes back 100 years then there will be a 1% chance the current year will be the driest year and a 1% chance it will be the wettest year.
There’s a trite expression for this: “records are made to be broken”
The current drought in Texas (I live on the shore of Lake Travis, right in the heart of the drought) has yet to exceed what’s called the “drought of record” which was in the 1950’s. There were three near-record low rainfall years in 1952, 1954, and 1956.
Interestingly, we get droughts and hot weather when the Pacific ocean surface is abnormally cold. It’s sort a yin-yang thing. More northerly areas of the US get the rainfall we would normally be getting. The cold Pacific shifts the jet stream northward and creates a high pressure region in Texas which pushes storm systems around or away from it so we don’t get moisture from either the Pacific ocean or the Gulf of Mexico.
More interestingly there’s a rather well known 60-year oscillation in ocean surface temperature that is reflected in global average temperature which is easily seen by just glancing at the surface temperature record since 1880. Add 60 years to 1950 and you get 2010. History repeats itself.
I might also point out that 2007 was the wettest summer on record.
Records are made to be broken. Write that down.
izen says:
September 26, 2011 at 4:20 pm
re; maize and elevated CO2
There are two primary photosynthetic pathways called C3 and C4. One benefits much more than the other from higher CO2 level. For most of the earth’s history, while terrestrial plants were evolving, CO2 levels were much much higher than today. C3 plants are optimized for those higher levels. In the natural world as CO2 level changes so too does the relative abundance of C3/C4 type plants. Nature is very well prepared for a warmer climate with higher CO2. Humans can easily adapt as well by shifting agricultural production more in favor of C3 pathway plants by artificial selection even as mother nature will be shifting the same way through natural selection.
Write that down!
@izen
When someone asked you for factual evidence of climate effects caused by rise in CO2 your answer was a TOA energy imbalance.
Let’s say the satellites are good enough to actually make that measurement accurately on a global average basis.
This still says nothing of effect this will have on the earth’s climate. Trenberth et al famously can’t find where the excess energy is hiding. In a moment of self-deprecating honesty in a private email with his peers he called it a travesty that they can’t explain where the additional energy is entrained.
The average temperature of the global ocean 3.9C. This is a reflection of the average surface temperature of the global ocean over the past 120,000 years.
The earth is in an ice age for the past several million years. I need you to write that down as many times as it takes so you don’t forget it. We’re living in a thin layer of temporary warmth on top of a bucket of ice water.
Here’s a very important question I’d like the climate science community to answer for me. How much anthropogenic CO2 do we need to produce in order to end the modern ice age so that th earth may once again become green from pole to pole instead of being covered for 100,000 years at a time in a mile-thick layer of ice over much of the norhern hemisphere land masses.
Maize doesn’t grow well on glaciers, Izen. Write that down too.
@- Smokey says: September 26, 2011 at 7:09 pm
“Since you’re obviously trying to pick apart the FACE study, here are some simpler links and graphics that debunk the notion that more CO2 is somehow bad ”
I am NOT trying to pick apart the FACE study or claim that CO2 is bad for plant growth.
But the link you gave was to a 2 page ‘poster’ presentation that but the best gloss on the results. Looking at the actual published papers from the Illinois group reveals that the picture is not as clear-cut as the poster presentation might imply.
I don’t think you are intentionaly advancing disinformation, I suspect you got tyhe link originally from a site that selected it for its positive take on CO2 effects without delving into the detail.
@- Dave Springer says:
“The current drought in Texas (I live on the shore of Lake Travis, right in the heart of the drought) has yet to exceed what’s called the “drought of record” which was in the 1950′s. There were three near-record low rainfall years in 1952, 1954, and 1956. ”
Take it up with John N-G, the Texas meteorologist who claims from presumably the official records that 2011 has been hotter and dryer than any of the years in the 50s -link in post above –
“Can you spot the outlier? The year 2011 continues the recent trend of being much warmer than the historical precipitation-temperature relationship would indicate, although with no previous points so dry it’s hard to say exactly what history would say about a summer such as this one. Except that this summer is way beyond the previous envelope of summer temperature and precipitation.”
-“More interestingly there’s a rather well known 60-year oscillation in ocean surface temperature that is reflected in global average temperature which is easily seen by just glancing at the surface temperature record since 1880. Add 60 years to 1950 and you get 2010. History repeats itself.”-
I am always impressed by the ability of armchair analysists to spot a periodic pattern from data that shows less that two full cycles of the period…
Or is this another one of these periodic cycles with a period and magnitude that vary by over 20% between cycles… and on which a clear linear trend is superimposed…
-“re; maize and elevated CO2
There are two primary photosynthetic pathways called C3 and C4. One benefits much more than the other from higher CO2 level.”-
Yes, and Maize/corn is a C4 plant and as the research shows is unaffected by increased CO2 except in drought conditions when it may sustain yields above the reduction that might be expected from a drought. So C4 plants probably only benefit during insuficient water conditions. Most weeds are C3 and will gain more than the corn….
-“Let’s say the satellites are good enough to actually make that measurement accurately on a global average basis.
This still says nothing of effect this will have on the earth’s climate. Trenberth et al famously can’t find where the excess energy is hiding. “-
The satellite data may be increased in accuracy in the future, but the present measurements are highly unlikely to have an error margin of more than 10%.
The effect on the Earths climate is the MEASURED one from sea surface temperatures. Again this has a sizable error range connected with uncertainty over the depth and rate at which energy is distributed into the oceans. The paper I quoted/linked specifically excludes climate models and the results are based purely on observations.
I wondered if the Trenberth trope of “missing heat” would appear, you are aware that the amount of missing heat is a small proportion of the total detected energy in both the ocean heat content and the TOA imbalance? The measured imbalance matches reasonably well (with some missing heat which is within the error margins) with the measured TOA energy fluxes.
So the effect of the changed energy flux from rising CO2 is directly correllated with the climate effect of a rise in ocean heat content.
No other explanations for the rising heat content have been succesfully proposed. To refute the link you would need both a mechanism that negated the CO2 energy flux changes AND a source of energy to account for the inceased OHC.
-“Here’s a very important question I’d like the climate science community to answer for me. How much anthropogenic CO2 do we need to produce in order to end the modern ice age so that th earth may once again become green from pole to pole instead of being covered for 100,000 years at a time in a mile-thick layer of ice over much of the norhern hemisphere land masses. “-
Model analysis (yes I know, models!) indicates that by the time the next glacial maximum approaches in 30Kyrs the effect of present CO2 rises will have gone as sinks restore the ~290ppm level so the present emissions of ALL the foissil fuels would have little effect – unless there are tipping points and a climate with a bi-stable state.
We would need to save fossilfuels and release the CO2 in the ~5kyrs before the next glacial extreme to have a hope of preventing it.
Buit as that is FIVE times the period which humans have had an agriculturally based civilization I suspect that things may have moved on by then… -grin-
@izen
As I knew, you can’t produce any actual evidence of how higher CO2 level is affecting the climate.
Thanks for playing.
@izen
I didn’t ask for your silly opinion on how much anthropogenic CO2 it would take to end the ice age. I at least want some published studies with methods and data that may be reviewed by qualified others. You may have heard of things being done this way before. It’s the scientific method.
@- Dave Springer says: September 27, 2011 at 4:19 am
“As I knew, you can’t produce any actual evidence of how higher CO2 level is affecting the climate.”
You will have to explain to me why you do not regard the measured spectral changes in the TOA and DWLR fingering CO2 for the energy imbalance, and the measured accumulation of energy in the oceans are somehow NOT ‘actual evidence’.
Perhaps it would be easier if you could provide your critereon for what you WOULD regard as ‘actual’ evidence of effects on the climate from ANY cause. For instance, do you accept the causal connection between big volcanic eruptions causing cooling because of the measured changes in TOA and DWLR energy ?
If so, why dismiss similar processes detected for CO2?
@izen
http://www.lcra.org/water/drought/index.html
Not the worst drought yet but it might exceed the 1950’s drought sometime next year. We need an El Nino to break it. The funny thing is that a cold Pacific ocean is causing this. It’s back-to-back La Nina’s. Perhaps you could explain why all the anthropogenic CO2 is making the Pacific ocean colder than normal, eh? LOL
You appear to be in denial of the 60-year ocean cycle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_multidecadal_oscillation
You mentioned that two and a half cycles since 1860 isn’t really strong statistical evidence that it isn’t just noise. I tend to agree with you.
But then you come along and tell me about a TOA energy imbalance on the order of 3W/m2 more energy entering the system than leaving the system and you must know, as do I, that we only have 10 years of decent data on that from CERES.
You can’t have your cake and eat it too, Izen. I won’t let you employ double standards. If 150 years of ocean surface temperatures isn’t good enough to establish any trends then 10 years of TOA energy budget isn’t enough either.
Can you spell “intellectually dishonest”, Izen?