COVID-19 isn't the only thing that took the world by surprise in 2020 - extreme weather events, likely caused by human activity, also did billions of dollars worth of damage that year.
Research published Dec. 15 in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS) reported that human-caused climate change worsened many extreme weather events that occurred across the world in 2020, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) stated on its website.
"Failed monsoon rains that reignited the southwestern U.S. drought. A spring heat wave in western Europe. Intense Siberian wildfires. Scientists say human-caused climate change made these extreme weather events more likely," NOAA stated in its announcement of the study.
Among the 2020 weather events studied were the drought in the southwest U.S. Using multiple model simulations, the NOAA study found that human-caused climate change increased the likelihood that the area's seasonal rains would not occur, the report states. Climate change also exacerbated the effects of events including the excessively warm, wet winter in northwest Russia; a heat wave in western Europe "made 40 times more likely" by climate change; and massive wildfires in Siberia caused by conditions 80% more likely than were possible 100 years ago, according to the report.
“This report reinforces the scientific consensus that human influence has created a new climate — one that is impacting extreme events today,” Stephanie Herring, NOAA climate scientist and editor of the "Explaining Extreme Events Report," said in the announcement. “As humans continue to emit billions of tons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, these extreme weather impacts are highly likely to increase.”
Citing information from reinsurance company Munich Re, CNBC reports that natural disasters stimulated by climate change cost $210 billion in damages worldwide in 2020. Damages in the U.S. alone totaled $95 billion, twice the amount of 2019.
Developing nations lack of adequate insurance coverage against disasters is a significant problem, CNBC reports. Weather catastrophes in Asia totaled $67 billion with insurance covering only $3 billion. Catastrophic flooding in China came with the highest price tag: $17 billion. Only 2% of those losses were insured, CNBC reports.
The U.S. was hit with six of the most expensive disasters, CNBC reported. Hurricane Laura in August did $13 billion in damages to Louisiana; a record 30 named storms and hurricanes cost another $43 billion. A line of severe storms in the Midwest caused almost $7 billion in losses and destroyed millions of acres of farmland; drought-fueled fires in the West did another $16 billion in damages, the report states.
“Natural-catastrophe losses in 2020 were significantly higher than in the previous year,” Munich Re's Torsten Jeworrek told CNBC. “Climate change will play an increasing role in all of these hazards. It is time to act.”
