From Stanford University
Preparing for climate change-induced weather disasters
The news sounds grim: mounting scientific evidence indicates climate change will lead to more frequent and intense extreme weather that affects larger areas and lasts longer.
However, we can reduce the risk of weather-related disasters with a variety of measures, according to Stanford Woods Institute Senior Fellow Chris Field.
Field will discuss how to prepare for and adapt to a new climate at the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting in Boston. Field’s talk, “Weather Extremes: Coping With the Changing Risks,” will be part of a symposium called “Media: Communicating Science, Uncertainty and Impact” 3-4:30, Feb. 16, room 204 of the Hynes Convention Center.
While climate change’s role in tornadoes and hurricanes remains unknown, Field says, the pattern is increasingly clear when it comes to heat waves, heavy rains and droughts. Field explains that the risk of climate-related disaster is tied to the overlap of weather, exposure and vulnerability of exposed people, ecosystems and investments.
While this means that moderate extremes can lead to major disasters, especially in communities subjected to other stresses or in cases when extremes are repeated, it also means that prepared, resilient communities can manage even severe extremes.
During the past 30 years, economic losses from weather-related disasters have increased. The available evidence points to increasing exposure (an increase in the amount and/or value of the assets in harm’s way) as the dominant cause of this trend. Economic losses, however, present a very incomplete picture of the true impacts of disasters, which include human and environmental components. While the majority of the economic losses from weather-related disasters are in developed world, the overwhelming majority of deaths are in developing countries.
Withstanding these increasingly frequent events will depend on a variety of disaster preparations, early warning systems and well-built infrastructure, Field says. The most effective options tend to produce both immediate benefits in sustainable development and long-term benefits in reduced vulnerability. Solutions that emphasize a portfolio of approaches, multi-hazard risk reduction and learning by doing offer many advantages for resilience and sustainability. Some options may require transformation, including questioning assumptions and paradigms, and stimulating innovation.
Chris Field is the founding director of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology and the Melvin and Joan Lane professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies at Stanford. He has been deeply involved with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. In 2008 he was elected co-chair of Working Group 2 of the IPCC, which released a special report, “Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation,” in 2012.
And now we have science by rumor of press release
A warmer atmosphere can hold, and dump, more moisture, snow experts say. And two soon-to-be-published studies demonstrate how there can be more giant blizzards yet less snow overall each year.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SCI_SNOW_GLOBAL_WARMING?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-02-18-11-33-15
“Nobody has shown any link between those weather events he lists and slight changes in the global average temperature, that’s pseudo-science at its worst.”
Actually, its pretty easy to do with heat waves. Most folks dont know that 40 cities around the world have heat wave warning systems and that while the incidence of heat waves is up ( go figure its getting warmer ) the death rate is down, due to a variety of factors ( like air conditioning ). If you think preparing for heat waves is a bad idea or not supported by the data, then I suppose you are at odds with the local governments of 40 great cities. Then again, perhaps they know better. In any case, your argument would be with those elected officials and I’m sure they’d be glad to hear your opinions on the matter. Maybe they would nod politely and let you know that they looked at the data, made their decision, and saved lives in the process. Go figure. They might have looked at the data and said ‘you know for planning, we dont need 95% confidence’ And they would have a point. Cause policy decisions are not scientific decisions. a 60% chance of more floods might be important to folks who live in flood plains.. heck a 10% chance might be important. I’d ask the folks at risk, not an “objective” outsider.
The simple fact is we are unprepared for the weather of the past, and folks should think twice before rejecting calls for better preparedness. Because if it was worse in the past, and if you believe in natural variability, then it only makes sense to prepare for a future that is at least as bad as the past. Or, you can reject the idea that the future will be as bad as the past, weather wise, merely because some folks you don’t like are concerned that the weather of the future might be worse that the weather of the past. It seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Pat, thanks for your response.
If my understanding is correct, theory bias refers to the fact the climate models collectively show similar bias (error in the same direction). Shown by the fact that most models get cloudiness wrong in the same direction.
Not really surprising, and consistent with my observation that climate models are little more than exercises in quantifying confirmation bias, but it’s nice to see someone rigorously demonstrate this.
Even 3rd graders can read this: “In the early 1840s, American settlers arrived over the Oregon Trail and established farms and a bustling frontier town called Champoeg which eventually was wiped away in a devastating 1861 flood.”
Idiots. Stanford allows WAAAYYYYY too much pot smoking!
Hmmm… The press release cites “mounting scientific evidence [that] climate change will lead to more frequent and intense extreme weather” but nothing attributes that opinion to Chris Field, the subject of the article. On the contrary, Field is quoted as saying that “The available evidence points to increasing exposure (an increase in the amount and/or value of the assets in harm’s way) as the dominant cause of this trend.”
It’s hard to argue with that position. If you build on a flood plain, you shouldn’t be surprised when it floods. Or to put it another way, those who ignore history (including the historical record of violent weather events) are condemned to repeat it.
Yet more specious bolleaux. If the 24/7 news effect is discounted, no one would be discussing “Extreme Weather Events”. However the junk science is dressed, it is genetically linked to this:
http://www.un.org/en/globalissues/environment/
Which links to this
http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/Agenda21.pdf
This is not some conspiracy fuelled hysteria; it is written evidence of the effectiveness of a supra-national, unelected, non-governmental organization.
We can convincingly demolish, whack-a-mole style, all specious ‘scientific’ claims as they come along. That all too many people ignore WHY this nonsense is peddled, is part of the problem.
Wake up, fellow WUWT people.
Angling for the speaker circuit fees I see.
The solution to their problems is to re-tune their flexi-models downwards, not upwards.
Oh, The grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men;
He marched them up to the top of the hill,
And he marched them down again.
And when they were up, they were up,
And when they were down, they were down,
And when they were only half-way up,
They were neither up nor down.
“During the past 30 years, economic losses from weather-related disasters have increased”
I have no doubt. There’s the lunacy of the homes slapped together using northern, stick-built designs in South Florida. Homes that were not inspected by competent county personnel, which led to massive “economic losses” from hurricane Andrew. (Reporters looked at home foundations and discovered many were never bolted down to the footer.) Then there’s the idea of waiting over a century to do something about dikes in New Orleans. It’s not the century that gets you, it’s the next day after your council members decide to put off doing something about it, again.
Crop loss? Of course the economic losses are bigger. The crops are bigger, so what else could the losses be?
However, blaming it all on the climate lets the officials and individuals responsible escape responsibility. Now *that’s* an incentive.
Pat Frank says:
February 18, 2013 at 12:13 pm
Nice work, Pat. Thanks for your work on behalf of science.
Latitude says:
February 18, 2013 at 12:51 pm
“CodeTech says:
February 18, 2013 at 12:26 pm
Since the beginning of the use of money, economic losses from weather related disasters have increased, NOT just the last 30 years. Weasel word alert!
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amen…..don’t forget the deal breaker……printing more money”
And the CAGW scam has paid for how many of those houses? Al Gore has one on the beach in California. If a tornado took out his house in Tennessee, he would say it was a monster The only monster in Tennessee is his house.
TomRude says:
February 18, 2013 at 4:18 pm
This article or a report on it was up on the frontpage of CBSnews’ website but lasted only a couple of hours. The article pushes the new meme of “moderate extremes.” They are shamelessly trying to make hay out of Sandy and the recent New England snow storms. I can find no science that supports their position. To the contrary, isn’t the concentration of atmospheric water vapor falling marginally?
Philip, sometimes the high inter-model correlation was negative, but incidences of also strong anti-correlation just means that the models generally don’t have the physics right.
Theo, thanks. 🙂
Steven Mosher says:
February 18, 2013 at 5:45 pm
“The simple fact is we are unprepared for the weather of the past, and folks should think twice before rejecting calls for better preparedness. Because if it was worse in the past, and if you believe in natural variability, then it only makes sense to prepare for a future that is at least as bad as the past. Or, you can reject the idea that the future will be as bad as the past, weather wise, merely because some folks you don’t like are concerned that the weather of the future might be worse that the weather of the past. It seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face.”
Then move the millions of people who live in the Flood Plains of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. The “thousand year” floods of 1973, 1982, and 1992 in St Louis made it plain as the nose on your face that disaster is coming to those flood plains. President Bill Clinton toured the 1992 flood. How much do you think it would cost to move those people? Do you think anyone has the political will to attempt to move them? Why would you or anyone expect some impoverished person in Bangladesh to react with any less indignation and resistance than well informed people in Missouri?
Human beings cut off the nose to spite the face routinely. Nothing can be done about it (unless there is a successful Fascist state). Get used to it and then accept it.
Of course it will be more extreme weather, unless it leads to more boring weather…
Cliff Mass, UW meteorologist, quantified “boring weather,” says this winter ties the all time most boring Seattle weather
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-most-boring-winter-in-seattle.html
So, which is it, again?
Surely, it will become increasingly more and more difficult to promote the line of weather weirding/climate disruption, should global temperature anomalies continue to stall.
What is the logical connect with the allegation that these past 20 years there has been more extreme weather events when during that very period (well 16/17 years of it) there has been no change in global temperature anomalies?
Surely, if global temperature anomalies continue to stall and assuming that the public become aware of this fact (ie., no temperature anomaly rise these past 17, 18, 19 ,20 etc years), the public will not buy into man is responsible for weather weirding/climate disruption.
Presently MSM is keeping the lid on the fact that the global temperature anomalies has stalled for a lengthy period, but this lid will not remain fixed as more and more become trapped in fuel poverty and/or as soon as there is serious disruption to energy supply due to inherent unreliability/inefficiencies of renewables that have replaced conventional power generation. This fact will come out, and with this the public are likely to conclude that either the case for recent weather weirding/climate disruption is overstated, alternatively it is simply a natural phenomena.
The third flood was in 1993, not 1992 as I said above.
K.Bob says:
February 18, 2013 at 7:33 pm
However, blaming it all on the climate lets the officials and individuals responsible escape responsibility. Now *that’s* an incentive.
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Seconded.
Climate change is being used to cover up incompetence of governments and the public sector in town planning, river and water management.
While the majority of the economic losses from weather-related disasters are in developed world, the overwhelming majority of deaths are in developing countries.
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Nonsense. Per capita weather related deaths are way down in the past 100 years, largely as a result of improved forecasting and communications.
If so many people are being killed by weather, then why are population levels so much higher now than before we started using fossil fuels?
Theo Goodwin says:
February 18, 2013 at 8:24 pm
Human beings cut off the nose to spite the face routinely. Nothing can be done about it (unless there is a successful Fascist state). Get used to it and then accept it.
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Any self respecting farmer 200 years ago knew you built your house on the hill and planted the lowlands beside the river. In that way the yearly floods fertilized your land ready for the next crop, and your house didn’t float away with the water.
Somewhere along the way common sense went out the window and people got the idea that the best place to build your house was beside the river. Now when it floods we are told it is global warming and our tax will have to pay to rebuild the numbskull that built by the river.
And then, our government in its wisdom decides that if we all dance around and stop burning fossil fuels, the river will stop flooding. After all, it never flooded before we started burning fossil fuels, so that must be the cause.
@ur momisugly Steven Mosher says:
February 18, 2013 at 5:45 pm
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“Actually, its pretty easy to do with heat waves. Most folks dont know that 40 cities around the world have heat wave warning systems and that while the incidence of heat waves is up ( go figure its getting warmer ) …”
I suggest you read Leroux “The meteorology and climate of tropical Africa” Springer 2001 when hazarding the correlation ‘warmer”=”heatwaves”. You’d realize that drought and heatwaves were more abundant during global cold periods than during interglacial, where the meteorological equator widened and greened even the Sahara. On the opposite, colder air masses coming from the poles create high pressure anticyclonic agglutinations that are in summer responsible for allowing intense and sometimes superheating of the grounds as the warm air cannot rise, clamped down by the high pressure and in winter, intense , prolonged cold spells.
Although you misinterpret the genesis of these weather events and attribute them to warming when in fact their increase in frequency is proven thanks to paleoclimatological work to be triggered by cooling, Leroux would agree with you that we should be better prepared for extreme weather events which we know will happen. No doubt that anarchic urban development in flood plains etc… were encouraged first by the very local governments that need smarting up.
No need indeed to invent some new theories to explain global warming’s failed predictions from 15 years ago to act on common sense.
@Theo Goodwin says:
February 18, 2013 at 8:02 pm
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“To the contrary, isn’t the concentration of atmospheric water vapor falling marginally?”
Indeed Theo, the NOAA chart shows that Water Vapor is falling steadily from 1948 to 2011 at the 300mB level i.e. 9km altitude, falled from 1948 to 1980 then is flat till 2011 at the 600mB level i.e. 3km altitude and fell from 1948 to 1970, then rose slightly from 1970 to 1988 and is now slightly declining till 2011 at the 1,000mB level near surface.
Again, averaging can be misleading as since meridian exchanges have been intensified since the climatic shift of the 1970s, more moist air is advected to temperate extra tropical regions, which might be the reason we see an increase in lower tropospheric levels, that is from 0 to 1500m where MPHs are active (cf. Leroux).
the cost of non-climate insured damage like earthquakes and urban fires has risen because of the increased value of the infrastructure damaged. But weather related damages have increased at a much faster rate beyond the rate of increase in the value of the infrastructure.
There were two recent research papers that conclusively show that extreme rain events are definitely increasing.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v470/n7334/full/nature09763.html
Here we show that human-induced increases in greenhouse gases have contributed to the observed intensification of heavy precipitation events found over approximately two-thirds of data-covered parts of Northern Hemisphere land areas.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v470/n7334/full/nature09762.html
Here we present a multi-step, physically based ‘probabilistic event attribution’ framework showing that it is very likely that global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions substantially increased the risk of flood occurrence in England and Wales in autumn 2000.
Izen @11.02
Hardly conclusive. The phrases “have contributed to” and “is very likely” don’t suggest absolute certainty to me.
@- Peter Plail
” The phrases “have contributed to” and “is very likely” don’t suggest absolute certainty to me.”
Perhaps you are unfamiliar with scientific language.
If I point out that your parents genetic makeup ‘have contributed’ to your genome and ‘is very likely’ to have shaped your genetic makeup would you still be uncertain about your parents contribution to your genetics ?