If There's Global Warming ... Why Is It So Cold?

It's that time of year, the perennial "It's snowing so it can't be warming" season - or, as scientists call it, "winter". Depends on where you're standing, actually -- I stood on a frozen lake with Dr. Jeff Masters to discuss the current planetary changes, but at the same time, in Alaska, historic warm temperatures were unfolding, and across the west, the deepest drought in decades...

Climate change? Try catastrophic climate breakdown

Already, a thousand blogs and columns insist the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's new report is a rabid concoction of scare stories whose purpose is to destroy the global economy. But it is, in reality, highly conservative.

In other words, it's perhaps the biggest and most rigorous process of peer review conducted in any scientific field, at any point in human history.

There are no radical departures in this report from the previous assessment, published in 2007; just more evidence demonstrating the extent of global temperature rises, the melting of ice sheets and sea ice, the retreat of the glaciers, the rising and acidification of the oceans and the changes in weather patterns. The message is familiar and shattering: "It's as bad as we thought it was."

What the report describes, in its dry, meticulous language, is the collapse of the benign climate in which humans evolved and have prospered, and the loss of the conditions upon which many other lifeforms depend. Climate change and global warming are inadequate terms for what it reveals. The story it tells is of climate breakdown.

This is a catastrophe we are capable of foreseeing but incapable of imagining. It's a catastrophe we are singularly ill-equipped to prevent.

The IPCC's reports attract denial in all its forms: from a quiet turning away – the response of most people – to shrill disavowal. Despite – or perhaps because of – their rigours, the IPCC's reports attract a magnificent collection of conspiracy theories: the panel is trying to tax us back to the stone age or establish a Nazi/communist dictatorship in which we are herded into camps and forced to crochet our own bicycles. (And they call the scientists scaremongers …)

In the Mail, the Telegraph and the dusty basements of the internet, Friday's report (or a draft leaked a few weeks ago) has been trawled for any uncertainties that could be used to discredit. The panel reports that on every continent except Antarctica, man-made warming is likely to have made a substantial contribution to the surface temperature. So those who feel threatened by the evidence ignore the other continents and concentrate on Antarctica, as proof that climate change caused by fossil fuels can't be happening.

They make great play of the IPCC's acknowledgement that there

has been a "reduction in surface warming trend over the period

1998–2012", but somehow ignore the fact that the past decade

is still the warmest in the instrumental record.

They manage to overlook the panel's conclusion that this slowing of the trend is likely to have been caused by volcanic eruptions, fluctuations in solar radiation and natural variability in the planetary cycle.

Were it not for man-made global warming, these factors could have made the world significantly cooler over this period. That there has been a slight increase in temperature shows the power of the human contribution.

But denial is only part of the problem. More significant is the behaviour of powerful people who claim to accept the evidence. This week the former Irish president Mary Robinson added her voice to a call that some of us have been making for years: the only effective means of preventing climate breakdown is to leave fossil fuels in the ground. Press any minister on this matter in private and, in one way or another, they will concede the point. Yet no government will act on it.

As if to mark the publication of the new report, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has now plastered a giant poster across its ground-floor windows: "UK oil and gas: Energising Britain. £13.5bn is being invested in recovering UK oil and gas this year, more than any other industrial sector."

The message couldn't have been clearer if it had said "up yours". It is an example of the way in which all governments collaborate in the disaster they publicly bemoan. They sagely agree with the need to do something to avert the catastrophe the panel foresees, while promoting the industries that cause it.

It doesn't matter how many windmills or solar panels or nuclear plants you build if you are not simultaneously retiring fossil fuel production. We need a global programme whose purpose is to leave most coal and oil and gas reserves in the ground, while developing new sources of power and reducing the amazing amount of energy we waste.

But, far from doing so, governments everywhere are still seeking to squeeze every drop out of their own reserves, while trying to secure access to other people's. As more accessible reservoirs are emptied, energy companies exploit the remotest parts of the planet, bribing and bullying governments to allow them to break open unexploited places: from the deep ocean to the melting Arctic.

And the governments who let them do it weep sticky black tears over the state of the planet. More

 

Top 10 cities most at risk of natural disaster

Earthquakes, Floods, Storms, Tsunamis, Etc...

All the natural disasters in the news lately made us wonder what parts of the world were most threatened by things like floods & earthquakes. Massive reinsurer Swiss Re (a reinsurance company sells insurance to insurance companies, allowing them to offload some risks...) has a new report titled "Mind the risk: A global ranking of cities under threat from natural disasters" (pdf) that sheds some light on exactly that. Using their sophisticated modelling software and huge database of past events, they came up with a probabilistic ranking.

There are all kinds of ways to look at the data, but here are some of the most interesting variations.

Swiss Re/Screen capture

There are all kinds of ways to look at the data, but here are some of the most interesting variations.

 

Swiss Re/Screen capture

The list changes a bit if we look at it by "working days lost". More European and US cities appear on the top 10.

If we look at just earthquake risk, this is what the top 10 looks like for both people affected and working days lost: More

 

Weather-related losses take their toll

August 19th 2013 8:00 AM Extreme weather events are taking their toll on the insurance industry even though midway through August the North Atlantic has yet to see its first hurricane of the year.

So far there have been five tropical storms including the currently active system Tropical Storm Erin, which is expected to dissipate in the mid-Atlantic.

But while there have been no hurricanes to wreak economic losses, there have been plenty of weather-related events elsewhere to keep risk managers and (re)insurance executives on their toes.

Zurich Insurance Group reported on Thursday a sharp decline in its second-quarter profits, mainly due to weather-related losses in Europe. The company’s net income fell 27 percent to $789 million.

Other insurers and reinsurers are counting the cost of this year’s severe weather-related events.

The major economies of the US, China and Canada have all suffered billions of dollars of losses as a result of severe weather, flooding and — in the case of China — earthquakes.

Strong thunderstorms and rain across the greater Toronto metropolitan region last month caused significant flooding and power outages, which affected businesses, vehicles and infrastructure. Economic losses from that single event have been estimated by AON Benfield at $1.45 billion, with around half of that cost covered by insurance. There was further severe weather in Ontario and Quebec provinces during July, with winds gusting up to 100mph during intense thunderstorms, which caused millions of dollars in insured losses.

Even before July, Canada had already suffered severe weather and flooding. Floods that occurred between June 19 and 24 claimed four lives and caused economic losses of $5.3 billion.

The insurance arm of Canada’s TD Bank Group expected claims costs from the severe weather in Alberta and Toronto to have a pre-tax impact of approximately $170 million after reinsurance.

Group president Ed Clark, in a statement to investors last month, said: “While banks and insurance companies can incur losses from severe weather events, our greatest concern is with the communities and individuals who experienced the devastation in Alberta and the GTA (Greater Toronto Area). We also thank our employees for their efforts to support our customers through these events, when many employees themselves were dealing with the impact.”

In the US weather-related losses have also been significant since the start of the year, with the Plains, Midwest and Northeast suffering economic losses of $6.5 billion in two bouts of severe weather in May and June.

For China it has been worse. During July torrential rainfall across many parts of the country brought floods that claimed the lives of almost 200 people and caused economic losses of more than $7 billion. A magnitude 5.9 earthquake on July 22 in the Gansu Province killed at least 95, damaged 80,000 homes and caused economic losses of $3.25 billion. Since the start of the year China has suffered economic losses due to a number of smaller earthquakes and weather-related events, by far the most significant is the $6 billion loss attributed to drought conditions in parts of the country since January 1.

Europe, Asia, Africa and South America have all suffered weather-related economic losses. A drought in Brazil between January and June caused losses estimated at $8.5 billion, while flooding in central Europe in May and June caused economic losses of $22 billion.

In the aftermath of the devastating floods in Europe, Peter Höppe, head of Munich Re’s Geo Risks Research unit, said: “It is evident that days with weather conditions that lead to such flooding are becoming more frequent and that such weather systems tend to remain stationary for longer. With this higher persistence of weather patterns, the potential for heavy and long-lasting precipitation within a trough situation, for example, increases. The counterpart to this are stationary high-pressure systems which in summer increase the risk of heatwaves and periods of drought.

“Debate in climate research is currently focusing on what the causes of such changes in weather patterns could be and what role climate change might play in this. But it is naturally not possible to explain single events on this basis.”

Even places as remote as the Azores archipelago have not escaped the wrath of the weather. In March the North Atlantic island group took a $45 million economic hit, with more than 500 properties damaged and three lives lost after days of heavy rain lashed the island of Terceira causing severe flooding.

Significant economic losses during July:

US (Severe weather) $175m+

Canada (Severe weather) $1.45b+

China (Flooding) $7b+

Significant economic loss events (January to June 2013):

US (Severe weather May 18-22) $4.5b+

Canada (Flooding June 19-24) $5.3b+

Brazil (Drought Jan 1-May 31) $8.3b+

Europe (Flooding May 30-June 15) $22b+

China (Drought Jan 1-July 31) $6b+

* Economic loss figures from AON Benfield’s Global Catastrophe Recap.