@MichaelEMann @skepticscience Normalizing for GDP growth is a classic cherry-picking technique as it ignores the vast increase in resilience delivered by all that wealth. It only factors in the increase of wealth exposed to extreme weather, not the increased resilience.
@MichaelEMann @skepticscience See Hurricane Sandy vs. the infamous 1938 Long Island Express Hurricane,
In ‘38 NY had only a handful of hours to prepare for Express. NY had a week to prepare for Sandy, thnx to satellites & forecasts, protecting subway etc. Can you imagine Sandy’s damage had NY only had hours?
In ‘38 NY had only a handful of hours to prepare for Express. NY had a week to prepare for Sandy, thnx to satellites & forecasts, protecting subway etc. Can you imagine Sandy’s damage had NY only had hours?
@MichaelEMann @skepticscience Also note that researchers besides Peilke Jr who also normalize for GDP still find an increase in damages AND they acknowledge the numbers would be even higher had they normalized for increased resilience.
@MichaelEMann @skepticscience And Munich Re data nicely illustrates how the global trend in climate disasters has escalated while the trend in geophysical disasters (eg earthquakes) has not. This divergence couldn’t happen if the increase in climate disasters was due to increasing wealth.
@MichaelEMann @skepticscience Here's another great example of the vast resilience to extreme weather that has come with GDP growth:
@MichaelEMann @skepticscience @s2natcat notes that ""Since 1950, globally there have only been four years with multiple $10 billion weather losses, on an inflation adjusted basis. These multi-cat loss years have all occurred since 2004."
