Data suggests exponential growth in weather disasters
This Guardian article on recent extreme weather around the globe provides some hard numbers that seem to confirm my gut sense that the frequency and severity of global warming-related extreme weather events will increase not linearly but exponentially:
Killer droughts and heatwaves, deeper snowfalls, more widespread floods, heavier rains, and temperature extremes are now the “new normal”, says Nikhil da Victoria Lobo of the giant insurance firm Swiss Re, which last month estimated losses from natural disasters have risen from about $25bn a year in the 1980s to $130bn a year today….
Oxfam reported that while the number of “geo-physical” disasters – such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions – has remained more or less constant, those caused by flooding and storms have increased from around 133 a year in 1980s to more than 350 a year now.
Until now, oceans have absorbed much excess CO2 and heat. But we’ve exhausted our natural buffer, and the atmosphere is starting to go into overdrive. (Nevertheless, humans are pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere than ever before!) Feedback effects will make matters even worse, as frozen tundras warm — releasing massive quantities of methane (a potent greenhouse gas) — and snow/ice that reflects energy away from the Earth melts, causing oceans to absorb more of the sun’s energy.
Hard data says severe weather is already dramatically worse than two decades ago. That bodes very badly for our future.
Posted by James on Tuesday, June 14, 2011