Abstracts of a conference sponsored by the Air & Waste Management Association included five presentations addressing possible links of climate change to changes in frequency of natural disasters in the US. The consensus of these authors, who examined US records of floods, droughts, heavy precipitation, tornadoes, hail, and hurricanes, is that there is no evidence to link changes in deaths and destructive property damage to changes in climate. Weather extremes do not show an increase in the 1990's when the record-setting property insurance losses occurred. These losses occurred more as a result of growth in population, increase in value of property per unit area, growing wealth, and poorer construction in storm-prone areas (Changnon, 1998). Hurricane frequency actually declined from the mid 1960's to the mid 1990's (Gray, 1998) and are likely to increase in the future due to natural variability. Trends in heavy precipitation events, although leading to high frequency of occurrence in the decade from 1986-1996, exhibit gradual changes due to natural variability that must be explained before a relation to climate change can be considered (Kunkel and Andsager, 1998).
References
Gray, W. M., 1998: Past and future trends in US hurricanes and their destruction. . Abstracts, Global Climate Change: Science, Policy, and Mitigation/Adaptation Strategies. Air & Waste Management Association Second International Specialty Conference. 13-15 October. Washington, DC.
Pielke, R. A., Jr., 1998: Trends in weather extremes and their societal impacts. Abstracts, Global Climate Change: Science, Policy, and Mitigation/Adaptation Strategies. Air & Waste Management Association Second International Specialty Conference. 13-15 October. Washington, DC.
Changnon, D., 1998: Assessment of natural hazards: Causes of recent increases in the frequency and losses related to insured weather catastrophes. Abstracts, Global Climate Change: Science, Policy, and Mitigation/Adaptation Strategies. Air & Waste Management Association Second International Specialty Conference. 13-15 October. Washington, DC.
Lins, H. F., and J. R. Slack, 1998: Wetter, but less extreme: Twentieth century trends in floods, droughts, and everything in between. Abstracts, Global Climate Change: Science, Policy, and Mitigation/Adaptation Strategies. Air & Waste Management Association Second International Specialty Conference. 13-15 October. Washington, DC.
Kunkel, K. E., and D. Andsager, 1998: Long-term trends in heavy precipitation events over North America. Abstracts, Global Climate Change: Science, Policy, and Mitigation/Adaptation Strategies. Air & Waste Management Association Second International Specialty Conference. 13-15 October. Washington, DC.