Archives par mot-clé : Disasters

climate-debate

21st Century Global Disasters

by P. Homewood, Aug 13, 2023 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

A new peer-reviewed paper out this week by Alimonti and Mariani asks whether global disasters have increased. Their answer is that they have not (and if the name sounds familiar, it is the same Alimonti whose paper is being improperly retracted — more fresh info on that in the coming days).

As I read their paper today I noticed that the time series they reported from the EM-DAT databaselooked a bit different than that I had last explored and presented here at THB late last year. So today I downloaded the most recent data from EM-DAT, and indeed there has been some changes to the most recent three years, presumably due to late entries into the database (however I will enquire as all post-hoc dataset updates should be documented). EM-DAT has been funded since the late 1990s by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Below is the updated time series of global hydrological, climatological and meteorological disasters in the EM-DAT database, along with the linear trend, over the period 2000 to 2022.

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unclassified

De Telegraaf Misled By UN Disaster Report Researcher

by P. Homewood, Oct 20, 2020 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

You will all recall the latest UN report, which claimed there had been a massive rise in “reported disasters” in the last two decades, compared to the previous two.

The Dutch newspaper, De Telegraaf, published an article in response complaining that the UN were not comparing like with like, because many smaller disasters were simply never recorded in the past. They also published this reply from Joris van Loenhout, researcher at the Belgian Centre  for  Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters  (CRED):

“From about 1960-1970 onward, the completeness of the data is much greater, and the share of missing disasters much smaller. We are constantly working to improve completeness, and this is also happening for previous years and decades. For this reason, statements made in 2004 and 2006 are now somewhat outdated, as the completeness of the database has since improved,”

 I have now had time to analyse CRED’s database, EM-DAT, and have the figures to show that Loenhout has not been telling the truth.

 

In their 2004 report, “Thirty Years of Natural Disasters”, CRED included this table of the number of natural disasters:

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climate-debate

New book shreds the “climate to extreme weather” link

by  Anthony Watts, August 30, 2018 in WUWT

After nearly every hurricane, heatwave, drought, or other extreme weather event, commentators rush to link the disaster with climate change. But what does the science say?

In this fully revised and updated edition of Disasters & Climate Change, renowned political scientist Roger Pielke Jr. takes a close look at the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the underlying scientific research, and the climate data to give you the latest science on how climate change is related to extreme weather.

What he finds may surprise you and raise questions about the role of science in political debates.