Climate Damage Costs $16m Per Hour
A new study estimates that the soaring costs of global warming and climate change have reached an all time high and that this number is still an underestimate of the real cost.
According to a post by the National Weather Service’s (NWS) Twin Cities Forecast (see below), several areas of Minnesota broke centuries-old temperature records for Christmas Day this year. The City of St. Cloud experienced a record-high temperature of 48 degrees, beating the previous record of 47 degrees set in 1922.
The NWS also reported other record high minimum temperatures for Monday at the Minneapolis–Saint Paul (MSP) International Airport and in Eau Claire, which broke records set in 1922 and 1940, respectively. The NWS Twin Cities office also noted that all three station locations saw record high minimum temperatures, with St. Cloud, MSP International Airport and Eau Claire experiencing high minimums of 36, 32 and 50 degrees, breaking records set in 1936.
This year saw a number of temperature and climate records which have included record temperatures, severe storms, tornadoes, flooding and wildfires. By December 8, there were 25 confirmed weather/climate disaster events in 2023, with losses exceeding $1 billion each in the United States. These events included one drought event, two flooding events, 19 severe storm events, one tropical cyclone event, one wildfire event, and one winter storm event.
While the United States has experienced an average of about eight, billion-dollar disasters annually over the past four decades, five of the past six years have seen national losses total an excess of more than $100 billion. This brings the five-year average cost up to $20 billion per year and an average of 18 weather-related catastrophic events in the United States annually.
The tally for this year includes a startling number of severe storms including tornadoes across the South and Midwest; destructive hailstorms in Minnesota and Colorado; atmospheric rivers producing massive rainfall on California; severe flooding in Vermont; a destructive hurricane in Florida, and the wildfire that destroyed Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui.
In addition to the increased number of storms that caused billions in damage in 2023, August was the planet’s hottest August in the history of NOAA’s 174-year climate record. According to an analysis by scientists from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, “the sizzling month [of August] also wrapped up the Northern Hemisphere’s warmest meteorological summer and the Southern Hemisphere’s warmest meteorological winter on record.”
Chief NOAA Scientist Dr. Sarah Kapnick elaborates on this heat phenomenon by saying the recent analysis “highlights the suite of climate services provided by NOAA, which informs a climate-ready nation.” Kapnick continues, “Not only was [it] the warmest August on record by quite a lot, it was also the globe’s 45th-consecutive August and the 534th-consecutive month with temperatures above the 20th-century average.
Dr. Kapnick draws the ultimate conclusion of this data by saying, “Global marine heat waves and a growing El Niño are driving additional warming this year, but as long as emissions continue driving a steady march of background warming, we expect further records to be broken in the years to come.”
August of this year also had the lowest global sea ice extent, which is known as the area of ice on record that covers the Arctic Ocean at a given time. Globally, the sea ice extent coverage in August 2023 was about 550,000 square miles less than the previous record low from August 2019. Sea ice extent in Antarctica continued to track at record lows as well, as the continent saw its fourth-consecutive month with the lowest sea ice extent on record. Six of the first eight months in 2023 have seen Antarctic sea ice extent at record-breaking low levels.
According to the NOAA, the tropics were also greatly affected in August by the soaring temperatures. That month alone saw nineteen named storms occur, which is tied for the third most accumulation of storms for the month of August since 1981. Eight of those 2023 disturbances reached major tropical cyclone strength, which involves sustained winds of 111 mph or higher, and ties the record breaking-year of August of 2015 for the most August storms on record.
The Atlantic Ocean had six storms in August including two hurricanes, and the measured activity was considered above normal by all standards. Additionally, the East Pacific basin hosted six named storms, including three major hurricanes, and the West Pacific had seven storms, six of which became typhoons.
Additionally, persistent areas of high pressure dominated the weather pattern this last summer into the fall over much of the South, which led to a lack of rainfall for a wide area of the 48 states that make up the contiguous United States (Lower 48). As of mid-December, a third of the Lower 48 was in drought, encompassing much of the southern and central United States.
Louisiana and Mississippi experienced their most widespread exceptional drought, which was the worst since 2000. In the Fall of 2023, just over two-thirds of Louisiana was classified in exceptional drought and almost one-third of Mississippi met that highest level. These extremely dry conditions caused an extreme wildfire season. In addition, record low levels of the Mississippi River from the Missouri Bootheel into parts of Mississippi allowed a wedge of saltwater to ooze upriver from the Gulf of Mexico, threatening water supplies in parts of southern Louisiana.
A recent study by researchers Ilan Noy and Rebecca Newman at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, suggests that the frequently cited estimates of the economic costs of climate change may be substantially underestimated. This study predicts that the actual damage caused by the climate crisis through extreme weather has cost at least $16 million an hour for the past 20 years.
This research, published in September of 2023, directly reports the impression that global heating has made on storms, floods, heatwaves and droughts with regard to their frequency and intensity. It is also the first study to calculate a global figure for the increased costs directly attributable to the human-caused phenomenon of global heating. The researchers at the center of the study hope that the new strategy study will help to calculate future funding needs for faster United Nations aid.
Noy and Newman determined that costs of global heating averaged $140 billion a year from 2000 to 2019, although the figure varies significantly from year to year. The latest data shows $280 billion in costs in 2022, which is a substantial recent increase. Moreover, both researchers say that a lack of data in low-income countries, which includes crop yield declines, sea level rates and heatwave data, means these figures are still an under-estimate of the total costs. Ultimately, the most recent study to tackle the real cost of global warming is still only a rough estimate.
A simplistic way to describe the increased climate heat and its effects on the earth is that 2023 set new, alarming records that are at best, an underestimate of the destruction. The 1980-2022 annual average is eight events per year, but the average over the last five years is 18 events. It is possible that the total for 2023 will increase as Tropical Storm Hilary is still being examined, and weather events in December have not yet been evaluated.
While nearly 200 countries at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) closed the event in November with an agreement to begin reducing global consumption of fossil fuels, the world’s reliance on them may make the reality difficult. While this agreement was a triumph in terms of accomplishing something which has eluded leaders throughout decades of climate talks, members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) still rely heavily on fossil fuel revenues and are therefore reluctant to make changes.
More than 100 countries had lobbied hard for strong language in the COP28 agreement to "phase out" oil, gas and coal use, but came up against powerful opposition from the Saudi Arabia-led oil producer group OPEC, which demanded the world cut emissions cutting down on consumption of their very profitable fuels. While it might be easy to blame this contingent for refusing to bend to the world’s climate needs, we can make a start in the United States by passing stricter regulations and electing more leaders who are willing to stand up to big oil.
The United States is the world's top producer of oil and gas, and the biggest historical emitter of greenhouse gases — many climate-conscious administrations have struggled to get laws aligned with their climate agendas passed in Congress. President Joe Biden scored a major victory last year with passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which contained hundreds of billions of dollars in clean energy subsidies — but there is still a lot of work to be done.
Throughout 2024, we will be highlighting the need for massive climate change reform here at SHERO, and introducing you to viable political candidates that you can support in order to help effect change. You can join Swing Left, a grassroots organization that registers new voters to help win elections for the Left. You can let the Democratic Party know that you want to make climate change an issue that takes precedence as we head into the next election cycle, by getting involved here. I look forward to heading into this next election cycle with you, fully armed with the critical scientific knowledge we all need, and the coordination that will help us elect those who will pass the laws we need now.
Amee Vanderpool writes the SHERO Newsletter, is an attorney, published author, contributor to newspapers and magazines, and an analyst for BBC radio. She can be reached at avanderpool@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter @girlsreallyrule.
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Why haven't all Republicans been held to account for Republican-made global warming? Until those most responsible are prosecuted, sentenced and jailed, there will be insufficient movement on climate.