According to calculations by federal climate scientists on January 10, the United States will continue to be affected by severe weather disasters in 2022, with a total loss of more than 165 billion U.S. dollars. Among them, 18 extreme weather events caused losses of at least 1 billion U.S. dollars each.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) said in a report released at the meeting of the American Meteorological Society (American Meteorological Society) that although the hot weather in the United States in 2022 will not set a record, regardless of the The number of extreme weather events that cost $1 billion, or the overall cost of climate disasters, is already the third most extreme year.
The multibillion-dollar numbers, costs and fatalities of weather disasters form the key metric used by NOAA to judge the severity of human-caused climate change, adjusted for inflation. The climate disaster has killed at least 474 people.
“People are finding that everyday life, work and play are being affected by changes in the climate system.” On January 10, Rick Spinrad, director of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said at a news conference. “Climate change continues and needs to be guarded against. More extreme events are expected.”
Hurricane Ian, the costliest drought in a decade and a pre-Christmas winter storm lead to the highest relative losses in 2022 since 2017. Federal meteorologists pointed to more damage in 2017, when Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria hit. In the disaster-prone 2005, several hurricanes, including Katrina, hit the Southeast. And disasters costing $1 billion in 2020 and 2021 are even more.
Ian, the third-worst hurricane in U.S. history, caused $112.9 billion in damages, compared with $22.2 billion from the Midwest drought, officials said. The drought disrupted barge traffic on the Mississippi River. Officials also said the $165 billion in losses in 2022 did not include the winter storm three weeks ago, otherwise the damage could have been closer to $170 billion.
More than 40 percent of the U.S. landmass has been in drought for 119 consecutive weeks, the highest in the government’s 22-year history of monitoring and easily beating the previous record of 68 consecutive weeks, Spinrad said. In 2022, 63% of the U.S. will be in drought. Spinrad expects some relief from the atmospheric rain pouring into California, but not much.
“Climate change exacerbates many extremes that could cost billions of dollars in disasters,” said Adam Smith, an applied climatologist and economist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He is mainly responsible for calculating the disaster and updating it in time to exclude the impact of inflation. Smith also pointed to a growing number of people building along expensive land-based coasts and rivers, destroying the ecological environment and a lack of strong building standards. He said property inflation was likely to be a small, localized factor due to the abundance of waterfront development.
“The United States, like much of the world, experiences multiple intense extremes of weather and climate, and a large population of the United States is vulnerable to extreme weather,” Smith told The Associated Press. “So the status quo is really unbalanced.”
From deadly heat to droughts and floods, climate change is too extreme to ignore, according to officials such as Smith.
“The risk of extreme events is growing, affecting every corner of the world,” said Sarah Kaepernick, chief scientist at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The problem is especially acute when it comes to dangerously high temperatures, notes Stephanie Herring, a climate scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Herring edits an annual study in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society that calculates how much extreme weather has been made worse by climate change over the past few years.
“Research shows that extreme heat events may also become the new normal,” Herring told the weather conference.
According to Smith, since roughly 2016, the scale and number of costly extreme events in the United States have risen sharply. Over the past seven years, 121 $1 billion weather disasters have resulted in more than $1 trillion in damages and more than 5,000 deaths.
The weather hazards of the past few years have been far worse than those of the 1980s, 90s or 2000s. For example, in the decade of the 1990s, there were 55 $1 billion disasters, resulting in $313 billion in damage and 3,062 deaths.
“It’s not just one extreme event, but many different types of extreme events in many parts of the United States.” Smith said. “If the bingo card (a kind of gambling game – translation annotation) is filled with extreme events, it can almost fill the entire bingo card in the past few years.”
Nine $1 billion non-tropical storms in 2022, including one severe convective storm, three hurricanes, two tornadoes, one flood, one winter storm, one mega-drought, and costly wildfires . The only general type of weather hazard not seen is freezing, which has historically caused crop losses of $1 billion or more, Smith said. Florida came close in December 2022, but only by a notch or two, and farmers took some precautions, he said.
Smith said a successfully-prevented freezing hazard was one of only two “little hopes” for an extreme scenario in 2022. Another hope, he said, is that wildfire seasons, while still costing more than $1 billion, are less severe than in past years, except in New Mexico and Texas.
Karin Gleason, director of climate monitoring at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, pointed out that in the first 11 months of 2022, California will experience the second driest on record, but an atmospheric river that began in December sent heavy rains, In the end, 2022 became the ninth driest year on record in California.
For the third year in a row, La Nina has cooled the eastern Pacific, tending to alter global weather patterns and moderate global warming, Gleason said. Arranged in terms of temperature, 2022 can only be ranked 18th since records began in the United States.
“It’s been a warm year, certainly above average for most of the country, but nothing record-breaking,” Gleason said. The average U.S. temperature was 53.4 degrees Fahrenheit (11.9 degrees Celsius), 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degrees Celsius) above the 20th century average.
Gleason said the past year had 1.5 inches (3.8 centimeters) less rain and snow than normal, making it the 27th driest out of 128 years.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced the global temperature situation in 2022 on January 12. 2022 will certainly not break the record, but it is likely to be among the top seven hottest years. The Copernicus Climate Change Service, a European climate monitoring agency, released calculations on January 10, saying that 2022 will rank fifth among the hottest years in the world and second in Europe.
A report released by the American economic research company Rhodium Group (Rhodium Group) on January 10 shows that in 2022, the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions will increase by 1.3%, and greenhouse gases are the cause of global warming due to the accumulation of heat. Emissions growth rate is lower than economic growth. The increase in emissions is mainly caused by cars and trucks, and the electricity industry is relatively less polluting.
This is the second year in a row that U.S. carbon pollution has increased after years of steady decline, and both have come after the end of the pandemic lockdown. According to the report of the Rhodium Group, judging from the status quo, the United States’ commitment to reduce carbon emissions by half compared to 2005 by 2030 is less likely to be realized. (Fortune Chinese website)
The AP’s climate and environment coverage is supported by several private foundations. The Associated Press is responsible for all content.
Translator: Liang Yu
Reviewer: Xia Lin
Costly weather disasters kept raining down on America last year, pounding the nation with 18 climate extremes that caused at least $1 billion in damage each, totaling more than $165 billion, federal climate scientists calculated on January10.
Even though 2022 wasn’t near record hot for the United States, it was the third-wildest year nationally both in number of extremes that cost $1 billion and overall damage from those weather catalysts, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in a report issued at the American Meteorological Society’s conference.
The amount, cost and death toll of billion-dollar weather disasters make up a key measurement, adjusted for inflation, that NOAA uses to see how bad human-caused climate change is getting. They led to at least 474 deaths.
“People are seeing the impacts of a changing climate system where they live, work and play on a regular basis,” NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad said at a January 10 press conference. “With a changing climate, buckle up. More extreme events are expected .”
Hurricane Ian, the costliest drought in a decade and a pre-Christmas winter storm pushed last year’s damages to the highest since 2017. The only more expensive years were 2017 — when Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria struck — and the disastrous 2005 when hurricanes numer , headlined by Katrina, pummeled the Southeast, federal meteorologists said. The only busier years for billion-dollar disasters were 2020 and 2021.
Ian was the third-costliest US hurricane on record with $112.9 billion in damage, followed by $22.2 billion in damage from a western and midwestern drought that halted barge traffic on the Mississippi River, officials said. The $165 billion total for 2022 doesn’t even include a total yet for the winter storm three weeks ago, which could push it close to $170 billion, officials said.
More than 40% of the continental United States was under official drought conditions for 119 straight weeks, a record in the 22 years of the federal drought monitor, easily passing the old mark of 68 straight weeks, Spinrad said. The country peaked at 63% of the nation in drought in 2022. Spinrad said he expects the atmospheric river pouring rain on California to provide some relief, but not a lot.
“Climate change is supercharging many of these extremes that can lead to billion-dollar disasters,” said NOAA applied climatologist and economist Adam Smith, who calculates the disasters, updating them to factor out inflation. He said more people are also building way in harm’s , along pricey coasts and rivers, and lack of strong construction standards is also an issue. With a good chunk of development beachside, real estate inflation could be a small localized factor, he said.
“The United States has some of the consistently most diverse and intense weather and climate extremes that you’ll see in many parts of the world. And we have a large population that’s vulnerable to these extremes,” Smith told The Associated Press. “So it’s really an imbalance right now.”
Climate change is a hard-to-ignore factor in extremes, from deadly heat to droughts and flooding, Smith and other officials said.
“The risk of extreme events is growing and they are affecting every corner of the world,” NOAA chief scientist Sarah Kapnick said.
The problem is especially bad when it comes to dangerous heat, said NOAA climate scientist Stephanie Herring, who edits an annual study in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society that calculates how much of the extreme weather in past years was worsened by climate change.
“Research is showing that these extreme heat events are also likely to become the new normal,” Herring said at the weather conference.
There’s been a dramatic upswing in the size and number of super costly extremes in the US since about 2016, Smith said. In the past seven years, 121 different billion-dollar weather disasters have caused more than $1 trillion in damage and killed more than 5,0 people.
Those years dwarf what happened in the 1980s, 1990s or 2000s. For example, in the entire decade of the 1990s there were 55 different billion-dollar disasters that cost $313 billion total and claimed 3,062 lives.
“It’s not just one but many, many different types of extremes across much of the country,” Smith said. “If extremes were on a bingo card, we almost filled up the card over the last several years.”
In 2022, there were nine billion-dollar non-tropical storms, including a derecho, three hurricanes, two tornado outbreaks, one flood, one winter storm, a megadrought and costly wildfires. The only general type of weather disaster missing was an icy freeze that causes $1 billion or more in crop damage, Smith said. And in December 2022, Florida came close to it, but missed it by a degree or two and some preventive steps by farmers, he said.
That prevented freeze was one of two “silver linings” in 2022 extremes, Smith said. The other was that the wildfire season, though still costing well over $1 billion, wasn’t as severe as past years, except in New Mexico and Texas, he said.
For the first 11 months of 2022, California was going through its second-driest year on record, but drenchings from an atmospheric river that started in December turned it to only the ninth-driest year on record for California, said NOAA climate chief Karin monitoring Gleason.
With a third straight year of a La Nina cooling the eastern Pacific, which tends to change weather patterns across the globe and moderate global warming, 2022 was only the 18th-warmest year in US records, Gleason said.
“It was a warm year certainly above average for most of the country but nothing off the charts,” Gleason said. The nation’s average temperature was 53.4 degrees (11.9 degrees Celsius), which is 1.4 degrees (0.8 degrees) warmer than the 20th century average.
The year was 1.5 inches (3.8 centimeters) below normal for rain and snow, the 27th-driest out of 128 years, Gleason said.
NOAA and NASA on January 12 announce how hot the globe was for 2022, which won’t be a record but is likely to be in the top seven or so hottest years. European climate monitoring group Copernicus released its calculations on January 10, 2 saying 202 was the fifth-hottest globally and second-hottest in Europe.
US greenhouse gas emissions — which is what traps heat to cause global warming — rose 1.3% in 2022, according to a report released on January 10 by the Rhodium Group, a think tank. That’s less than the economy grew. The emissions increase was driven by cars, trucks and industry with electric power generation polluting slightly less.
It’s the second straight year, both after lockdowns eased, that American carbon pollution has grown after fairly steady decreases for several years. It makes it less likely that the United States will achieve its pledge to cut carbon emissions in half by 2030 par 2030 , according to the Rhodium report.
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