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posted by chromas on Thursday April 12 2018, @05:50PM   Printer-friendly
from the winters-too dept.

The Center for American Progress reports

This year has been "anything but ordinary" according to the latest data released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In the first three months of 2018, the United States has seen three climate and weather disasters each resulting in more than $1 billion in damages.

Two of the four nor'easters to hit the central and eastern U.S. during a one month period resulted in record snowfall and more than a billion dollars in losses each. Millions were without power and hundreds of flights were grounded. Multiple deaths were reported across Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Virginia.

In mid-March, a deadly storm also hit the Gulf Coast with reports of dangerous winds, hail, and tornadoes. At least three people died and 20 tornadoes were reported in Alabama.

"It has been quite some time since the U.S. has experienced multiple, billion-dollar winter storm events", said Adam Smith, the NOAA scientist who compiled the data.

All told, the January to March period of the past three years has had the highest frequency of billion-dollar disasters on record since 1980--with 2018 surpassed only by 2016 and 2017.

As Smith told ThinkProgress via email, not only is the number of billion-dollar winter storms experienced in the past few years increasing, but the cost of these winter storms are increasingly above average compared to the 1990s, when a series of damaging storms--including a 1997-98 ice storm that hit the northeast--crippled parts of the country.

[...] Like with summertime hurricanes, winter nor'easters start in the ocean. And with warmer waters, these storms become more intense. According to Accuweather, this year's series of devastating nor'easters spent more time forming over the ocean, giving them a chance to increase in strength by absorbing more of the warmer ocean temperatures.

Additionally, with higher sea levels come more devastating storm surges. Massachusetts, for example, was repeatedly hit with coastal flooding during this year's winter storms.

Related: Climate change dials down Atlantic Ocean heating system


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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 13 2018, @08:11AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday April 13 2018, @08:11AM (#666361) Journal

    That is not proof, just more simplistic logic without any supporting evidence.

    So you think there's no evidence to support the claim that the economy has grown or inflation has occurred? Or that storm damage would be proportional to the value of the objects damaged? Or does "without any supporting evidence" merely mean "I disagree"?

    The "simplistic" claim hasn't been rebutted - it's worth noting here that the effect is far stronger than would be indicated by a measure of GDP. For example, you're ignoring that US real estate valuation (at least of residential real estate, though I think other sorts of real estate have also increased by a similar amount) has more than doubled [soylentnews.org] just in the last two decades (and has increased faster than the economy over the entire period from 1980). You're ignoring that more buildings and such have been constructed in areas like flood plains that are more susceptible to extreme weather events.

    This is typical climate change confirmation bias - attributing an phenomenon solely to climate change when there are far larger, "simplistic" effects that readily explain it.