STORM DAMAGE: Smashed homes and ruined roads may not be attributable to greenhouse gases for centuries, according to new research that suggests climate policies like adaptation should be designed without financial evidence of climate-enhanced storms.
Image: By Adam Devaney, courtesy Flickr
Hurricanes could become more prevalent with climate change, but the economic pain they deliver might not be recognized as man-made for 260 years.
That means smashed homes and ruined roads may not be attributable to greenhouse gases for centuries, according to new research that suggests climate policies like adaptation should be designed without financial evidence of climate-enhanced windstorms.
The researchers also warn environmentalists and policymakers against making claims that damage from Hurricane Katrina and other storms are rising from carbon dioxide emissions. Insurance companies that promote climate change as a reason for rising prices could also lose credibility.
The researchers "urge extreme caution in attributing short term trends (i.e., over many decades and longer) in normalized US tropical cyclone losses to anthropogenic climate change."
"Not only is short term variability not 'climate change' (which the IPCC defines on time scales of 30 to 50 years or longer), but anthropogenic climate change signals are very unlikely to emerge in US tropical cyclone losses at time scales of less than a century under the projections examined here," says the analysis accepted by the journal Environmental Research Letters.
Economic losses are seen as a potent storyteller about climate change. If greenhouse gases could be shown to increase financial damages, that might accelerate efforts to develop stronger buildings codes, influence insurance prices for coastal homes, and discourage development in risk-prone areas.
But the research tells a different story, at least for hurricanes. As a backdrop, it uses a landmark study published in Science last January finding that the number of strongest hurricanes, categories 4 and 5, could double in 100 years because of climate change.
The researchers begin by assuming that's true. Then they apply hurricane damage data from the past century to those future hazards, adjusting for growth in population, inflation and wealth.
Finding the signals in weather cycles
The results indicate that future hurricane damages won't produce a tangible "climate signal" for at least 120 years, and perhaps not for 550 years. The average time before a signal might be seen is 260 years, according to the combined findings of an 18-model ensemble used by the researchers. In that year, 2271, climate change is expected to increase damage by 106 percent, more than double.
The researchers know this is a touchy topic. It could be perceived as an effort to downplay the impacts of climate change, or be seen with alarm by environmentalists advocating for action now to cut carbon pollution.
"It's not to dispute that [global warming] is happening or what influence it will have on hurricanes," said Ryan Crompton, a co-author and a catastrophe risk expert with Risk Frontiers, a research organization at Macquarie University near Sydney, Australia, that is funded in part by the insurance industry.
"It's not like in years 1 through 259 there's no change on average in the damage," he added. "Then, all of sudden, it gets to year 260 and it increases by 106 [percent]. That 260 years ... is how long before we can say in terms of detection and attribution, 'Yes, there's the [climate] signal.'"
Parsing damages from hurricanes attributable only to greenhouse gases is a difficult process. So far, it hasn't been done with conviction. Still, a month ago, researchers at the London School of Economics released an unpublished paper indicating that the United States has seen a 5 percent rise in climate hurricane damages since 1973. They cautioned, however, that the findings were tentative and may have been influenced by variables other than global warming (ClimateWire, Nov. 29, 2010.).
Atlantic's fiercest storms may double
The signature of a warming Earth will reveal itself in the number of hurricanes before it's seen in the damages the storms inflict. The study released last year in Science estimates that the number of severe storms with wind speeds reaching at least 131 miles per hour will rise 10 percent each decade. On that pace, the frequency of the Atlantic's fiercest storms would double by 2110. Weaker storms, meanwhile, would abate.
So why wouldn't climate-related damage rise at the same rate as hurricane frequency? Because buildings and infrastructure are not located uniformly along the country's coastlines, and some are constructed more robustly than others. A climate-influenced storm, in other words, could rip ashore in an unpopulated area of Florida and do little damage. That dilutes the climate signal in economic losses.
In that way, the economic loss research confirms what Tom Knutson, a research meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and an expert on climate change and hurricanes, has considered common sense: Climate change will reveal itself first in the hazard, then in the damage.
"Nothing too earth-shattering here," Knutson said. "This study actually doesn't tell me much that I already sort of have a notion of anyway. Namely, that if one is looking for a signal of climate change in the hurricane record, damage is not the first place to go to look for it."
But Roger Pielke Jr., a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and co-author of the new economic loss research, says the findings are evidence that policymakers will have to grapple in the dark with global warming. If they wait for economic proof before addressing climate change, valuable options around adapting to storms will slip their grip.
A tool to restrict insurance premiums?
He also has a warning for insurers and climate modelers: Don't overplay current climate risks.
"If you have a vested interest in particular outcomes, you want to try to emphasize that science or that information that best makes your case," Pielke said of Munich Reinsurance and other companies that emphasize addressing climate change. "If there's an expectation that losses over the next few years are going to be higher because of climate change, it provides a scientific, quote-unquote, basis for justifying rate increases."
"Because your credibility is hard to gain and easy to lose in the area, and they don't want to be seen as going beyond what the science can support," he cautioned.
Others are viewing the climate risks through a different lens. Some U.S. insurers have expanded their focus to look at the warming impacts on things like flooding, ice storms and nor'easters, said Sharlene Leurig, senior manager of the insurance program at Ceres, an organization for institutional investors concerned about climate change.
"I think a number of the largest players in the industry are realizing it's not just hurricanes and that it's not just a future trend," she said of global warming. "It's very much something that's affecting statistics today."
Among those are floods that insurers and the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency once considered a risk that would come once in 100 years. Some areas have seen repetitive flooding on a much shorter timeline.
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
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8 Comments
Add CommentI put a tickler on my calendar for January 4, 2271 to follow up on this story.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI can relate my joy that the pseudo-skeptics now accept accept models as a legitimate means of research. It was a long struggle, Soccerdad, but you are finally there.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisComputer models should allow reasonably accurate predictions. No climate change model does that yet. The most recent prognoses that I have seen on climate predict a new ice age within 20 years. Incidentally, Fred Bailey gives an accurate reason for weather variability that we are now experiencing. The sun is NOT the centre of our solar system, but, like all of the planets, it, too, rotates about the centre of gravity of the solar system. At the present time, three gas giants, all on the same side of the sun, cause the centre of gravity of the system to be well outside the surface of the sun. Also, about 13 years ago, Scientific American itself said that, from old weather data recovered from Lake Eyre, Australia, we were about to go back to normal weather extremes, not the narrow range of extremes existing from 1830 to 1970.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe article makes no sense- and flies in the face of what 97% of other climate scientists say is likely this century.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisC02 has risen 100ppm in the last 100 years- from 290-390ppm. In past geologic history that has been accomplished in the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum around 55 million years ago when C02 rose to 1000ppm, from a much lower level over a period of over 20,000 years.
Never in Geologic history has C02 risen so fast- 10 times what it has in the past. A C02 level of 1000ppm- a real possibility by 2100 would melt all the ice caps and raise sea levels eventually over 250 feet- as what too place in the PETM. The sun though then was 4 tenths of 1% dimmer then now. By mid century the American Midwest could easily revert back to what it was in the mid Pliocene (3.5 million years ago) when C02 levels where between 375-400ppm.
The writer of this article obviously knows nothing.
An increase of 10% per decade for 70 years would double the frequency. That's in 2080, not 2110.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA ten percent change per decade would surely show a signal before 2270, with its 12x as many severe storms as now.
One does not simply appeal to the public at large for acceptance of scientific validity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis forum is not where that comment belongs, even if it were reasonable.
There is a difference between responsible reporting and what Melissa Martin chose to write about the CCSVI Clinic in this article. She was in possession of factual information and documents that put the CCSVI Clinic in a favorable light but chose to withhold the information she received from the physicains and researchers at CCSVI Clinic that would have conflicted with her agenda to smear our reputation in order to sensationalize her story. At no time did anyone from the CCSVI Clinic pressure patients into going to India for the Liberation Procedure. She should have considered that the one single person who made that claim clearly had her own agenda because she was disheartened by her 'borderline' results. We simply provide information to people about our enhanced hospital stay and aftercare program should a patient decide to have the procedure. You can't pressure someone to make an important decision about their health and all of our literature clearly states that. These MS patients are more knowledgeable about the CCSVI condition and about the options for treatment than most physicians are. To suggest that they can be pressured into a decision to have the procedure done in India is ludicrous. Patients who have signed up to be part of our open-ended study on the safety and efficacy of an enhanced aftercare protocol to reduce the rate of re-stenosis versus having the procedure on an outpatient basis (which may be contributing to long term failure of the procedure) have done so to ensure that they are getting the best care possible and because they want to be part of the important work we are doing for MS patients. http://www.ccsviclinic.ca/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStem cells are “non-specialized” cells that have the potential to form into other types of specific cells, such as blood, muscles or nerves. They are unlike "differentiated" cells which have already become whatever organ or structure they are in the body. Stem cells are present throughout our body, but more abundant in a fetus.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMedical researchers and scientists believe that stem cell therapy will, in the near future, advance medicine dramatically and change the course of disease treatment. This is because stem cells have the ability to grow into any kind of cell and, if transplanted into the body, will relocate to the damaged tissue, replacing it. For example, neural cells in the spinal cord, brain, optic nerves, or other parts of the central nervous system that have been injured can be replaced by injected stem cells. Various stem cell therapies are already practiced, a popular one being bone marrow transplants that are used to treat leukemia. In theory and in fact, lifeless cells anywhere in the body, no matter what the cause of the disease or injury, can be replaced with vigorous new cells because of the remarkable plasticity of stem cells. Biomed companies predict that with all of the research activity in stem cell therapy currently being directed toward the technology, a wider range of disease types including cancer, diabetes, spinal cord injury, and even multiple sclerosis will be effectively treated in the future. Recently announced trials are now underway to study both safety and efficacy of autologous stem cell transplantation in MS patients because of promising early results from previous trials.
History
Research into stem cells grew out of the findings of two Canadian researchers, Dr’s James Till and Ernest McCulloch at the University of Toronto in 1961. They were the first to publish their experimental results into the existence of stem cells in a scientific journal. Till and McCulloch documented the way in which embryonic stem cells differentiate themselves to become mature cell tissue. Their discovery opened the door for others to develop the first medical use of stem cells in bone marrow transplantation for leukemia. Over the next 50 years their early work has led to our current state of medical practice where modern science believes that new treatments for chronic diseases including MS, diabetes, spinal cord injuries and many more disease conditions are just around the corner.
There are a number of sources of stem cells, namely, adult cells generally extracted from bone marrow, cord cells, extracted during pregnancy and cryogenically stored, and embryonic cells, extracted from an embryo before the cells start to differentiate. As to source and method of acquiring stem cells, harvesting autologous adult cells entails the least risk and controversy.
Autologous stem cells are obtained from the patient’s own body; and since they are the patient’s own, autologous cells are better than both cord and embryonic sources as they perfectly match the patient’s own DNA, meaning that they will never be rejected by the patient’s immune system. Autologous transplantation is now happening therapeutically at several major sites world-wide and more studies on both safety and efficacy are finally being announced. With so many unrealized expectations of stem cell therapy, results to date have been both significant and hopeful, if taking longer than anticipated.
What’s been the Holdup?
Up until recently, there have been intense ethical debates about stem cells and even the studies that researchers have been allowed to do. This is because research methodology was primarily concerned with embryonic stem cells, which until recently required an aborted fetus as a source of stem cells. The topic became very much a moral dilemma and research was held up for many years in the US and Canada while political debates turned into restrictive legislation. Other countries were not as inflexible and many important research studies have been taking place elsewhere. Thankfully embryonic stem cells no longer have to be used as much more advanced and preferred methods have superseded the older technologies. While the length of time that promising research has been on hold has led many to wonder if stem cell therapy will ever be a reality for many disease types, the disputes have led to a number of important improvements in the medical technology that in the end, have satisfied both sides of the ethical issue.
CCSVI Clinic
CCSVI Clinic has been on the leading edge of MS treatment for the past several years. We are the only group facilitating the treatment of MS patients requiring a 10-day patient aftercare protocol following neck venous angioplasty that includes daily ultrasonography and other significant therapeutic features for the period including follow-up surgeries if indicated. There is a strict safety protocol, the results of which are the subject of an approved IRB study. The goal is to derive best practice standards from the data. With the addition of ASC transplantation, our research group has now preparing application for member status in International Cellular Medicine Society (ICMS), the globally-active non-profit organization dedicated to the improvement of cell-based medical therapies through education of physicians and researchers, patient safety, and creating universal standards. For more information please visit http://www.theprofitron.com/bic/