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Phenomenal Friday - Saturday Puddles - One Tough Tropical Forecast -
| Minneapolis Star Tribune | - |
Video of one large tornado
was reportedly captured in the Paulding County area of Northwest Ohio
and posted to YouTube by Live Storms Media..." .... for the public."
(Video: The Washington Post/Photo: Sammy Dallal for The Washington Post). ... That's ...
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Economic Growth Won't Keep Up With Hurricane Damages
| CleanTechnica | - |
Researchers
have concluded that not only will the financial damages from hurricanes
increase dramatically by the end of the century, but that the rate of
economic growth won't grow at a level to keep pace with hurricane-caused
financial losses.
Economic Growth Won’t Keep Up With Hurricane Damages
August 31st, 2016 by Joshua S Hill
Researchers have concluded that not
only will the financial damages from hurricanes increase dramatically by
the end of the century, but that the rate of economic growth won’t grow
at a level to keep pace with hurricane-caused financial losses.
A new study
conducted by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
analyzing the magnitude of future hurricane losses in relation to
economic growth, and showcasing the economic impact in the United
States, has found that financial losses per hurricane could triple by
the end of the century if climate change is not mitigated somehow, while
annual losses could on average rise by a terrifying factor of eight.
However, of maybe most import is the
finding that the economic growth of the United States and other nations
will not grow at a pace enough to counterbalance the increasing losses
caused by increasingly frequent hurricanes.
“So far, historical losses due to
tropical cyclones have been found to increase less than linearly with a
nation’s affected gross domestic product (GDP),” said Tobias Geiger, of the Potsdam Institute (PIK), and an author of the study.
“However, if you
analyze losses with respect to per capita income and population growth
separately, this reveals a different picture: Our analysis for the
United States shows that high income does not protect against hurricane
losses. As the number and intensity of tropical cyclones is projected to
increase under unchecked global warming, by the end of the century
average hurricane losses with respect to national GDP could triple.”
The researchers used top line weather
models which linked a hurricane storm’s wind speed, the exposed
population, and per capita GDP to reported losses.
“We used information about historical
hurricane tracks for the Eastern United States to identify the
connection between the affected population, average per capital income
and associated damages,” added Katja Frieler, also of PIK and author of
the study. “Finally, we applied this relationship to thousands of
potential future hurricane tracks that could affect the Eastern United
States until 2100 under different levels of global warming.”
“Some people hope that a growing economy
will be able to compensate for the damages caused by climate change —
that we can outgrow climate change economically instead of mitigating
it. But what if damages grow faster than our economy, what if climate
impacts hit faster than we are able to adapt?” Anders Levermann asked,
the third author of the study. “We find that this is the case with
hurricane damages in the United States, the hope in economic growth as
an answer to climate change is ill-founded. While adaptation to
unavoidable impacts of global warming is important, climate mitigation
remains of vital relevance to prevent or damp still avoidable
consequences.”
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