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What the media won't tell you about extreme weather and its impacts
Here is a thread of some of the figures I've posted in recent months about extreme weather that I have never seen in legacy media reporting
All peer-reviewed and official sources . . .
Floods
IPCC finds no trends in flooding globally
Did you know that flood impacts in the US as a proportion of wealth are down >70% over 80 years?
Huge news, good news!
But don't tell anyone 🥸
rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/series-what-…
Drought
The IPCC finds no long-term trends in meteorological or hydrological drought
In Western Europe specifically there is no trend in drought over >150 years
rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/series-what-…
US heat waves
The US government's official metric for heat waves comes from a paper I co-authored more than 20 years ago
It shows an increase since ~1960s but a decrease since <1930s
rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/what-the-med…
US heat waves
During the past 50 years, when heat waves have increased, mortality from extreme heat has fallen pretty much everywhere in the US
rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/what-the-med…
That is good news!
Let's keep it up
US (mainland) hurricanes
IPCC, WMO, UNNCA are all in agreement
No upwards trends in landfalling hurricanes, including the strongest storms
Have you ever seen these graphs in the media (aside from Bill Nye and his sharpie;)
rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/what-the-med…
US disaster costs
As a proportion of GDP US disaster costs have gone down
More good news!
rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/billion-doll…
European disaster costs
As a proportion of GDP European disaster losses have gone down
Even more good news!
rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/making-sense…
Global weather and climate disaster losses
As a proportion of GDP global disaster (weather and climate, but also overall) have gone down
Great news!
rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/dont-believe…
Disasters
This century the number of disasters tracked by EM-DAT has not increased, in fact down a bit
Important to understand why so that progress with respect to the Sendai Framework can be maintained!
rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/dont-believe…
US tornadoes
Reports of the strongest US tornadoes (EF3+) which cause ~70% of death and destruction are down in the long and short terms
rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/what-the-med…
Damage from tornadoes supports the data on falling numbers of the strongest tornadoes
Both inflation-adjusted and normalized tornado losses have decreased
rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/what-the-med…
Normalized US hurricane losses
As we would expect with no up-trend in US landfalls there is no trend in normalized US hurricane losses since 1900
rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/pielkes-week…
Global hurricane landfalls
Lots of ups and downs over 70+ years but no overall trend
rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/just-the-fac…
Global hurricane energy
More ups and down but no trend since 1980
rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/just-the-fac…
Global hurricane energy per storm
No trend since 1980
Storms are not getting stronger but fewer
rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/just-the-fac…
Everything you find in this thread
Everything
Is consistent with what has been reported in the IPCC & found in official data and the peer-reviewed literature
Shhh ... don't tell anyone
rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/how-to-under…
If you want to understand what the science of extreme weather, climate and disasters actually says, please sign up to The Honest Broker
Amazing to me that some of the things I write about you cannot find anywhere else
So I'm not gonna stop
rogerpielkejr.substack.com
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