Climate Central: Increasing Tornado Extremes and Variability

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by Climate Central, May 11, 2016

The impact of climate change on tornadoes is still an active topic of study. Early research suggests that the warming earth will provide more energy to produce the storms that generate tornadoes, but less shear to give the necessary spin. Observations over the past few decades have yielded a couple of interesting trends. First, while there are now fewer days with tornadoes in a given year, there are more tornadoes on the days when they do occur. Second, the variability in the number of tornadoes in a month has been increasing.

A 2014 NOAA study examined trends in the tornado record for a possible climate change signal.

Since the early 1970s, the nationwide average annual number of days with at least one (E)F1 or stronger tornado has dropped from 150 to 100. Yet, there has been an increase in the number of days with a very high number of tornadoes. In the 1970s, the average number of days with more than 30 (E)F1 or stronger tornadoes was less than one. In the last decade, that number had jumped to 3.

Only two years in the record had more than 750 (E)F1+ tornadoes – 1973 and 2011. But even during the active year of 1973, only 2 of those days had more than 30 tornadoes that rated (E)F1 or stronger. In 2011, that number ballooned to 9. Further, 2011 had as many days with more than 30 (E)F1+ tornadoes than the entire period between 1961 and 1981. 

To look for individual state trends, Climate Central compared the average number of tornado days in each state from the first decade of the analysis to the last decade. The core of Tornado Alley (KS, NE, OK, TX) has seen the average number of days with more than one EF1+ tornado drop more than 50% during that 50-year time span.

Another trend we are seeing in the long-term tornado record is the increased variability of tornado counts from year-to-year. In the last 25% of the NOAA study period (1999–2013), the record for the largest number of tornadoes within a calendar month has been set 6 times. During that same period, the record for the fewest number of tornadoes within a calendar month has been set 5 times and tied twice. In effect, 13 monthly extreme records have been established or tied during the final quarter of the study period.

Not surprisingly, there are several months in which the minimum tornado record count was zero. But when the months with no tornadoes are excluded from the analysis, the study found more monthly records have been established in the most recent 15 years versus the first 45 years of the study period. Those extremes are balanced between records highs and record lows.

http://www.climatecentral.org/gallery/graphics/tornado-days-variability

Increased variability of tornado occurrence in the United States," by Harold E. Brooks et al., Science 346 (2014); doi: 10.1126/science.1257460

Science, 346(6207) (17 October 2014) 349-352; doi: 10.1126/science.1257460

Increased variability of tornado occurrence in the United States

1. Harold E. Brooks1,*, 
2. Gregory W. Carbin2, and 
3. Patrick T. Marsh2

Abstract

Whether or not climate change has had an impact on the occurrence of tornadoes in the United States has become a question of high public and scientific interest, but changes in how tornadoes are reported have made it difficult to answer it convincingly. We show that, excluding the weakest tornadoes, the mean annual number of tornadoes has remained relatively constant, but their variability of occurrence has increased since the 1970s. This is due to a decrease in the number of days per year with tornadoes combined with an increase in days with many tornadoes, leading to greater variability on annual and monthly time scales and changes in the timing of the start of the tornado season.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Tornadoes clustering in greater numbers

Will global warming cause more tornadoes? If so, that has not happened yet. Brooks et al. compiled data on the occurrence of tornadoes in the United States between 1954 and 2013 to determine if and how tornado numbers have changed. Although the authors saw no clear trend in the annual number of tornadoes, they did see more clusters of tornadoes since the 1970s. In other words, there has been a decrease in the number of days per year with tornadoes but an increase in the number of days with multiple tornadoes. Why this clustering effect has occurred is not clear.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/346/6207/349

EXTREME TORNADO OUTBREAKS HAVE BECOME MORE COMMON, SAYS STUDY

NEWS FROM

The Earth Institute

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, MARCH 2, 2016

EXTREME TORNADO OUTBREAKS HAVE BECOME MORE COMMON, SAYS STUDY

Climate Could Be Implicated, But Answers Are So Far Unclear

Most death and destruction inflicted by tornadoes in North America occurs during outbreaks—large-scale weather events that can last one to three days and span huge regions. The largest ever recorded happened in 2011. It spawned 363 tornadoes across the United States and Canada, killing more than 350 people and causing $11 billion in damage.

Now, a new study shows that the average number of tornadoes in these outbreaks has risen since 1954, and that the chance of extreme outbreaks —tornado factories like the one in 2011—has also increased.

The study’s authors said they do not know what is driving the changes. “The science is still open,” said lead author Michael Tippett, a climate and weather researcher at Columbia University’s School of Applied Science and Engineering and Columbia’s Data Science Institute. “It could be global warming, but our usual tools, the observational record and computer models, are not up to the task of answering this question yet.” Tippett points out that many scientists expect the frequency of atmospheric conditions favorable to tornadoes to increase in a warmer climate—but even today, the right conditions don’t guarantee a tornado will occur. In any case, he said, “When it comes to tornadoes, almost everything terrible that happens, happens in outbreaks. If outbreaks contain more tornadoes on average, then the likelihood they’ll cause damage somewhere increases.”

The results are expected to help insurance and reinsurance companies better understand the risks posed by outbreaks, which can also generate damaging hail and straight-line winds. Over the last 10 years, the industry has covered an average of $12.5 billion in insured losses each year, according to Willis Re, a global reinsurance advisor that helped sponsor the research. The article appears this week in the journal Nature Communications.

Every year, North America sees dozens of tornado outbreaks. Some are small and may give rise to only a few twisters; others, such as the so-called “super outbreaks” of 1974 and 2011, can generate hundreds. In the simplest terms, the intensity of each tornado is ranked on a zero-to-five scale, with other descriptive terms thrown in. The lower gradations cause only light damage, while the top ones, like a twister that tore through Joplin, Missouri, in 2011 can tear the bark off trees, rip houses from their foundations, and turn cars into missiles.

For this study, the authors calculated the mean number of tornadoes per outbreak for each year as well as the variance, or scatter, around this mean. They found that while the total number of tornadoes rated F/EF1 and higher each year hasn’t increased, the average number per outbreak has, rising from about 10 to about 15 since the 1950s.

The study was coauthored by Joel Cohen, director of the Laboratory of Populations, which is based jointly at Rockefeller University and Columbia’s Earth Institute. Cohen called the results “truly remarkable.”

“The analysis showed that as the mean number of tornadoes per outbreak rose, the variance around that mean rose four times faster. While the mean rose by a factor of 1.5 over the last 60 years, the variance rose by a factor of more than 5, or 1.5 x 1.5 x 1.5 x 1.5. This kind of relationship between variance and mean has a name in statistics: Taylor’s power law of scaling.

“We have seen [Taylor’s power law] in the distribution of stars in a galaxy, in death rates in countries, the population density of Norway, securities trading, oak trees in New York and many other cases,” Cohen says. “But this is the first time anyone has shown that it applies to scaling in tornado statistics.”

The exponent in Taylor’s law number—in this case, the exponent was 4-- can be a measure of clustering, Cohen says. If there’s no clustering—if tornadoes occur just randomly--then Taylor’s law has an exponent of 1. If there’s clustering, then it’s greater than 1. “In most ecological applications, the Taylor exponent seldom exceeds 2. To have an exponent of 4 is truly exceptional. It means that when it rains, it really, really, really pours,” says Cohen.

Extreme outbreaks have become more frequent because of two factors, Tippett said. First, the average number of tornadoes per outbreak has gone up; second, the rapidly increasing variance, or variability, means that numbers well above the average are more common.

Tippett was concerned that the findings could be artifacts of tornado observational data, which are based on eyewitness accounts and known to have problems with consistency and accuracy. To get around this, he re-ran his calculations after substituting the historical tornado data with environmental proxies for tornado occurrence and number of tornadoes per occurrence. These provide an independent—albeit imperfect—measure of tornado activity. The results were very nearly identical.

As for whether the climate is the cause, Tippett said, “The scientific community has thought a great deal about how the frequency of future weather and climate extremes may change in a warming climate. The simplest change to understand is a shift of the entire distribution, but increases in variability, or variance, are possible as well. With tornadoes, we’re seeing both of those mechanisms at play.”

“This paper helps begin to answer one of the fundamental questions to which I’d like to know the answer,” says Harold Brooks of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Severe Storms Laboratory. “If tornadoes are being concentrated into more big days, what effect does that have on their impacts compared to when they were less concentrated?“

“The findings are very relevant to insurance companies that are writing business in multiple states, especially in the Midwest,” says Prasad Gunturi, senior vice president at Willis Re, who leads the company’s catastrophe model research and evaluation activities for North America. “Overall growth in the economy means more buildings and infrastructure are in harm’s way,” said Gunturi. “When you combine this increased exposure because outbreaks are generating more tornadoes across state lines and the outbreaks could be getting more extreme in general, it means more loss to the economy and to insurance portfolios.”

Insurance companies have contracts with reinsurance companies, and these contracts look similar to the ones people have for home and car insurance, though for much higher amounts.  The new results will help companies ensure that contracts are written at an appropriate level and that the risks posed by outbreaks are better characterized, said Brooks.

“One big question raised by this work, and one we’re working on now, is what in the climate system has been behind this increase in outbreak severity,” said Tippett.

This research was also supported by grants from Columbia's Research Initiatives for Science and Engineering, the Office of Naval Research, NOAA’s Climate Program Office  and the U.S.National Science Foundation.

The paper, “Tornado outbreak variability follows Taylor’s power law of fluctuation scaling and increases dramatically with severity,” is available from the authors.

Scientist contacts:

Michael Tippett  212-851-5936  mkt14@columbia.edu

Joel Cohen  212-327-8883  cohen@mail.rockefeller.edu

More information: Kevin Krajick, Senior editor, science news, The Earth Institute: kkrajick@ei.columbia.edu 212-854-9729

The Earth Institute, Columbia University mobilizes the sciences, education and public policy to achieve a sustainable earth. www.earth.columbia.edu.

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Tornadoes Increasingly Coming In Swarms In United States, Study Says

by Will Dunham, Huffington Post, October 16, 2014

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tornadoes in the United States are increasingly coming in swarms rather than as isolated twisters, according to a study by U.S. government meteorologists published on Thursday that illustrates another trend toward extreme weather emerging in recent years.

Looking at tornado activity over the past six decades, the study in the journal Science found the total number of tornadoes annually remaining rather steady, averaging 495. Since the 1970s, there have been fewer days with tornadoes but plenty more days with many of them, sometimes dozens or more.

On the list of the 10 single days with the most tornadoes since 1954, eight have occurred since 1999, including five since 2011. That year alone had days with 115, 73, 53 and 52 twisters.

The meteorologist who led the study, Harold Brooks of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma, said emergency management agencies and insurers should be prepared to deal more often with days with lots of tornado damage.

The study analyzed the official U.S. tornado database for the six-decade period ending last year, excluding twisters below Category F1, with wind speeds of 73-112 mph (117-180 kph), on the Enhanced Fujita Tornado Intensity Scale.

Some experts have blamed weather intensity seen in recent years on global climate change they attribute to human activities. This study did not, however, offer a conclusion as to a cause.

"Knowing that the climate now has changed from that of the 1970s makes for a circumstantial argument in favor of a changing climate playing at least some role in the tornado changes," said meteorologist Patrick Marsh of NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.

"There are indications that heavy rainfall events are occurring with greater frequency globally, and given a warmer climate, this makes sense," added Storm Prediction Center meteorologist Greg Carbin.

But "any trend in tornado events is much more difficult to discern," Carbin added.

The average number of days annually with at least 20 tornadoes has more than doubled since the 1970s to upwards of five days per year in the past decade. For days with at least 30 tornadoes, there has been an average of three per year in the past decade, compared to 0.6 days per year in the 1970s.

Records for both the most and fewest tornadoes over a 12-month period have come in the past five years, with 1,050 from June 2010 to May 2011 and 236 tornadoes from May 2012 to April 2013. May is the month with the most tornado activity, followed by June and April.

Tornadoes, rapidly spinning columns of air usually spawned by rotating thunderstorms, can be among the most violent weather events. They have been reported on every continent except Antarctica but most often hit a U.S. region covering the Great Plains and parts of the Midwest and South.

Tornadoes can cause extensive loss of life and property damage like the May 2011 twister in Joplin, Missouri, that killed about 160 people and wrecked thousands of homes.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/16/tornado-swarms-study_n_5998328.html

New research links tornado strength and frequency to climate change

by Kathleen Haughney, Florida State 24/7, FSU, August 7, 2014

James Elsner, professor of geography at Florida State.

New research by a Florida State University geography professor shows that climate change may be playing a key role in the strength and frequency of tornadoes hitting the United States. 

Published Wednesday in the journal Climate Dynamics, Professor James Elsner writes that though tornadoes are forming fewer days per year, they are forming at a greater density and strength than ever before. So, for example, instead of one or two forming on a given day in an area, there might be three or four occurring. 

"We may be less threatened by tornadoes on a day-to-day basis, but when they do come, they come like there's no tomorrow," Elsner said. 

Elsner, an expert in climate and weather trends, said in the past, many researchers dismissed the impact of climate change on tornadoes because there was no distinct pattern in the number of tornado days per year. In 1971, there were 187 tornado days, but in 2013 there were only 79 days with tornadoes.

But a deeper dive into the data showed more severity in the types of storms and that more were happening on a given day than in previous years.

"I think it’s important for forecasters and the public to know this," Elsner said. "It's a matter of making sure the public is aware that if there is a higher risk of a storm, there may actually be multiple storms in a day."

The United States experiences more tornadoes than any other country, and despite advances in technology and warning systems, they still remain a hazard to residents in storm-prone areas. The 2011 tornado season, for example, had nearly 1,700 storms and killed more than 550 people.

So far, in 2014, there have been 189 storms with a death toll of 43, according to the NOAA/National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center.

One bright spot of news in the research, Elsner added, was that the geographic areas impacted most regularly by tornadoes do not appear to be growing.

Elsner was joined on the paper by independent researcher Thomas H. Jagger, formerly a research associate at Florida State University, and meteorologist Svetoslava Elsner.

http://news.fsu.edu/More-FSU-News/New-research-links-tornado-strength-frequency-to-climate-change

"The increasing efficiency of tornado days in the United States," by S.B. Elsner, S.C. Elsner & T.H. Jagger, Climate Dynamics (2014); doi: 10.1007/s00382-014-2277-3

Climate Dynamics, (6 August 2014); doi: 10.1007/s00382-014-2277-3

The increasing efficiency of tornado days in the United States

James B. Elsner, Svetoslava C. Elsner and Thomas H. Jagger

Abstract

The authors analyze the historical record of tornado reports in the United States and find evidence for changes in tornado climatology possibly related to global warming. They do this by examining the annual number of days with many tornadoes and the ratio of these days to days with at least one tornado and by examining the annual proportion of tornadoes occurring on days with many tornadoes. Additional evidence of a changing tornado climate is presented by considering tornadoes in geographic clusters and by analyzing the density of tornadoes within the clusters. There is a consistent decrease in the number of days with at least one tornado at the same time as an increase in the number of days with many tornadoes. These changes are interpreted as an increasing proportion of tornadoes occurring on days with many tornadoes. Coincident with these temporal changes are increases in tornado density as defined by the number of tornadoes per area. Trends are insensitive to the begin year of the analysis. The bottom line is that the risk of big tornado days featuring densely concentrated tornado outbreaks is on the rise. The results are broadly consistent with numerical modeling studies that project increases in convective energy within the tornado environment.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-014-2277-3

Jeff Masters: May 2014 Earth's warmest May since records began in 1880

by Jeff Masters, wunderblog, June 23, 2014

May 2014 was Earth's warmest May since records began in 1880, beating the record set in 2010, said NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) and NASA. The planet has now had two back-to-back warmest months on record, since NOAA also rated April 2014 as being tied for the warmest April on record. This is the first time Earth has experienced back-to-back warmest months on record since a four-month stretch during March, April, May and June 2010. Global ocean temperatures during May 2014 were 0.59 °C (1.06 °F) above the 20th century average; this ties with June 1998, October 2003 and July 2009 for the greatest departure from average of any month in recorded history. Global land temperatures were the 4th warmest on record in May 2014, and the year-to-date January-May period has been the 5th warmest on record for the globe. Global satellite-measured temperatures in May 2014 for the lowest 8 km of the atmosphere were 6th or 3rd warmest in the 36-year record, according to Remote Sensing Systems and the University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH), respectively. Northern Hemisphere snow cover during May was the 6th lowest in the 48-year record. 

Figure 1. Departure of temperature from average for May 2014, the warmest May for the globe since record keeping began in 1880. In Europe, Latvia and Norway had their warmest May on record, as did South Korea in Asia. Portions of Central Asia and Australia were also record warm. No record cold was observed. Image credit: National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) .

Notable weather events of May 2014
According to wunderground's weather historian, Christopher C. Burt, in his May 2014 Global Weather Extremes Summary, an amazing heat wave occurred in China, Japan, and the Koreas the last week of May. Beijing saw its warmest May temperature on record with a 41.1 °C (106.0 °F) reading on May 30th, and all-time national heat records for the month of May were set for South Korea and China. A remarkable heat wave along the Baltic Sea broke the all time May heat record for Estonia (33.1 °C/91.6 °F at Kunda on May 19th) and at St. Petersburg, Russia, with 33.0 °C (91.4 °F), also on May 19th. Gambia tied its all-time national heat record (for any month) on May 4th when the temperature rose to 45.5 °C (113.9 °F) at Kaur. 


Figure 2. The deadliest weather disaster of 2014 so far has been the tragic landslide in the Argo District of Badakhshan Province, NE Afghanistan, on May 2. Death toll estimates vary widely, from 350 to 2,700. According to Dave's Landslide Blog, the landslide came after prolonged heavy rainfall in the region and occurred in the middle of the day on a Friday, when many people are likely to be at home. The slide occurred in two phases, with an initial slide that buried many people. In the aftermath, many people from local villages went to help, only to be buried by the second landslide. Image credit: BBC correspondent Bilal Sarwary.



Three billion-dollar weather disasters in May 2014
Three billion-dollar weather-related disasters hit the Earth during May 2014, according to the May 2014 Catastrophe Report from insurance broker Aon Benfield. The total number of billion-dollar weather disasters through May is 10, which is behind the record-setting pace of 2013, which had 13 such disasters by the end of May, and ended up with a record 41 such disasters by the end of the year.


Disaster 1. Torrential rains on May 14-15 in Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina caused extreme flooding that killed at least 80 people and caused $4.5 billion in damage. The heavy rains were caused by Extratropical Storm Yvette, a strong and slow-moving upper-level low pressure that cut off from the jet stream and lingered over the region for two days, pulling up copious amounts of moisture from the Mediterranean Sea. This aerial view of the flooded area near the Bosnian town of Brcko along the river Sava was taken May 18, 2014. (AP Photo/Bosnia Army)


Disaster 2. Flooding rains in China May 24-28 killed 37 people and caused $1.2 billion in damage. In this image we see dark clouds gathering in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province of China on May 22, 2014. Image credit: ChinaFotoPress/ChinaFotoPress via Getty Images.


Disaster 3. An outbreak of severe weather hit the Midwest, Rockies, and Northeast U.S. from May 18 to 23, causing $2.5 billion in damage. In this image taken by wunderphotographer Darhawk, we see a supercell thunderstorm near Denver, Colorado, on May 22, 2014, that prompted issuance of a tornado warning.

An El Niño Watch continues 
May 2014 featured neutral El Niño conditions in the equatorial Eastern Pacific, and sea surface temperatures have been hovering near the threshold for El Niño, +0.5 °C from average, from late April through June 23. However, the atmosphere has not been behaving like it should during an El Niño event. The Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) --the difference in surface pressure between Darwin, Australia and the island of Tahiti --tends to drop to negative values during the presence of an El Niño atmosphere, but has been positive over the past 30 days. Heavy thunderstorm activity over Indonesia and near the International Date Line is typically enhanced during an El Niño event, and was near normal at the beginning of June. This activity has picked up over the past week, but must increase substantially before we can say the atmosphere is responding in an El Niño-like fashion. The Madden-Julian Oscillation, a pattern of increased thunderstorm activity near the Equator that moves around the globe in 30-60 days, is currently weak and disorganized, and will not be a factor in moving conditions towards El Niño this week. 

NOAA is continuing its El Niño Watch, giving a 70% chance that an El Niño event will occur by the summer, with an 80% chance by the fall. In a June 20 article at Climate Central, Stephen Baxter, a seasonal forecaster with NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, said: “we’re nicely on track for a weak to moderate, but still potentially impactful” El Niño event in the fall to winter months.

Arctic sea ice falls to 3rd lowest May extent on record 
Arctic sea ice extent during May was the 3rd lowest in the 36-year satellite record, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). 

Most impressive weather videos of May 2014 

Video 1. One of the most spectacular weather videos taken in May 2014 was of a Low-Precipitation (LP) supercell thunderstorm on May 18, 2014, between Wright and Newcastle, WY. The best footage begins about 0:50 into the clip. The rotation of the thunderstorm is beautifully captured. LP supercells usually form in dry regions, where there might be just enough moisture to form the storm, but not enough moisture to rain very hard. You can usually find the updraft on the rear flank (back) of the storm. On radar, an LP will not show up as a hook echo because there's not enough precipitation within the storm to provide the reflectivity. These storms might not look that strong, but they can pack a punch. LP supercells often produce tornadoes and large hail.


Video 2. An EF-2 tornado with 120 mph winds hit this camp for oil workers just south of Watford City, North Dakota, on May 27, 2014. The tornado injured 9 people and damaged or destroyed 15 trailers. Dan Yorgason, who lives in a neighboring workers camp to the one destroyed, filmed the tornado from inside his truck. "The tornado was coming down the hill along our only escape route. There was nowhere for us to go. It was crazy," he said. The contrast of the brown of the lower part of the funnel with the white portion of the upper funnel is particularly striking 2:00 into the video.


Video 3. A severed bridge floats down the Bosna River in Bosnia and Herzegovina on May 14, 2014. Here is a video of the bridge before it was swept away.

Win $100 in this month's wunderground "Climate Lottery" 
Every three months, the Weather Channel's Guy Walton runs a "Climate Lottery" in his wunderground blog where players guess U.S. temperatures for the coming three months. Last season's winner earned a free 10-year wunderground membership. This winner of the new contest will pocket a cool $100. Simply go to Guy's blog and pick three numbers between 1 and 120 (with 1 representing the coldest possible ranking and 120 being the highest possible ranking) for June, July, and August 2014 U.S. temperatures, plus a tie-breaker “Power Ball” or overall ranking number for summer 2014. Post your prediction in the comments section of the blog. Picks must be made by midnight EDT July 5th. The National Climatic Data Center’s ranking numbers for summer 2014 will be posted on or shortly after September 15th, 2014.

I'll have a new post on Wednesday, as the tropics are quiet in the Atlantic, and no development is expected this week.

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2705

Jeff Masters: April 2014 Tied for Earth's Warmest April on Record

by Dr. Jeff Masters, wunderground, May 20, 2014

Full Link

April 2014 tied with April 2010 as Earth's warmest April since records began in 1880, said NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) today, making April the first month since November 2013 to set a global monthly temperature record. NASA rated April 2014 as the 2nd warmest April on record; global land temperatures were the 3rd warmest on record, as were global ocean temperatures. The year-to-date January-April period has been the 6th warmest on record for the globe. Global satellite-measured temperatures in April 2013 for the lowest 8 km of the atmosphere were 11th or 7th warmest in the 36-year record, according to Remote Sensing Systems and the University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH), respectively. Northern Hemisphere snow cover during April was the 6th lowest in the 48-year record. Wunderground's weather historian, Christopher C. Burt, has a comprehensive post on the notable weather events of April 2014 in his April 2014 Global Weather Extremes Summary. 

Figure 1. Departure of temperature from average for April 2014, the warmest April for the globe since record keeping began in 1880. Much of central Siberia observed temperatures more than 9 °F (5 °C) above the 1981-2010 average. This region, along with parts of eastern Australia and scattered regions in every major ocean basin, were record warm. Many nations in Europe experienced a top-ten warmest April, including Spain (2nd), Germany (4th), United Kingdom (4th), Denmark (4th), Norway (7th), and Austria (10th). Parts of southern and eastern Canada, the northern U.S., and southern Kazakhstan were cooler than average. No land areas were record cold. Image credit: National Climatic Data Center (NCDC).



Three billion-dollar weather disasters in April 2014
Three billion-dollar weather-related disasters hit the Earth during April 2014, according to the April 2014 Catastrophe Report from insurance broker Aon Benfield: 


Disaster 1. The Western U.S. drought of 2014 now has damages estimated at $4 billion. Most of these losses are in California, where the California Farm Water Coalition has cited agricultural damages of $3.6 billion. In this photo, we see one of the key water supply reservoirs for Central California, Lake Oroville, on January 20, 2014. Thanks to an unusually intense ridge of high pressure over Western North America, California endured its driest November-January period on record this past winter. Image credit: California Department of Water Resources.


Disaster 2. The U.S. tornado outbreak of April 27-May 1 killed 39 and caused at least $2 billion in damage. Eleven tornadoes rated EF-3 or higher touched down, including two EF-4 tornadoes. in this photo we see tornado damage in Tupelo, Mississippi, from an EF-3 tornado that hit on April 28, 2014, killing one person. (J. Robert Senseman)


Disaster 3. Visible satellite image of Tropical Cyclone Ita taken at 04 UTC April 11, 2014. At the time, Ita was a Category 4 storm with 145 mph sustained winds. Ita ravaged agriculture in Queensland, Australia, resulting in $1 billion in damage. Image credit: NASA.

An El Niño Watch continues 
April 2014 featured neutral El Niño conditions in the equatorial Eastern Pacific, but NOAA has issued an El Niño Watch for the summer and fall of 2014, giving a greater than 65% chance that an El Niño event will occur by the summer. I made a detailed post on El Niño on May 12.

Arctic sea ice falls to 5th lowest April extent on record 
Arctic sea ice extent during April was 5th lowest in the 36-year satellite record, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). The winter maximum extent of Arctic sea ice came on March 21, and was the 5th lowest such peak on record. Temperatures over most of the Arctic Ocean were 1-3 °C (2-5 °F) above average during April.

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2682

The biggest coming economic showdown you haven't heard of

by David Atkins, Washington Monthly, May 18, 2014

Close followers of the climate change battle have been watching carefully for one major event that might serve as a bigger catalyst than other to mobilize legislative action. But that event has nothing to do with weather or natural disasters. It’s about money. Specifically, the big money behind the insurance industry.

You see, in the same way that net neutrality advocates benefit from having the support of companies like Google and Netflix, climate change advocates have been waiting for their own unlikely corporate allies in the insurance industry.

The reason is obvious in retrospect: rising sea levels and more frequent natural disasters will either make many areas uninsurable, or insurance companies will go bankrupt trying to insure them (and the same goes for insurance backed by the federal government). Insurance companies have an existential need to get ahead of the curve on the climate question. It has just been a matter of when the battle would be joined.

That time is finally here, and that’s a very big deal:

A major insurance company is accusing dozens of localities in Illinois of failing to prepare for severe rains and flooding in lawsuits that are the first in what could be a wave of litigation over who should be liable for the possible costs of climate change. Farmers Insurance filed nine class actions last month against nearly 200 communities in the Chicago area. It is arguing that local governments should have known rising global temperatures would lead to heavier rains and did not do enough to fortify their sewers and stormwater drains.

The legal debate may center on whether an uptick in natural disasters is foreseeable or an “act of God.” The cases raise the question of how city governments should manage their budgets before costly emergencies occur.

This is the first ever lawsuit of its kind, but it will not be the last. The insurance industry is not going to do down with a sinking ship, and communities are obviously not going to go without insurance. Nor can the federal government realistically afford to single-handedly cover the cost of repairing the damage from every increasingly severe wildfire, hurricane, drought, tornado, flood or snowstorm.

Right now the insurance companies’ strategy will be to lay the blame on governments for not doing enough to adapt to climate change. Attempts to set that precedent will be very challenging to say the least, and will likely fall short. The next step would be direct political action to support emissions reductions and to back away from coverage commitments.

Something is going to give. If the insurance industry gets serious enough to put enough of its money up to challenge the fossil fuel barons, we might even see some Republicans start to see the light on climate change. Probably not, but one can always hope.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2014_05/the_biggest_coming_economic_sh050399.php

U.S. insurer (Farmers Insurance) class action lawsuit against 200 Illinois towns may signal wave of climate-change suits

by Mica Rosenberg, Reuters, May 17, 2014


A major insurance company is accusing dozens of localities in Illinois of failing to prepare for severe rains and flooding in lawsuits that are the first in what could be a wave of litigation over who should be liable for the possible costs of climate change.

Farmers Insurance filed 9 class actions last month against nearly 200 communities in the Chicago area. It is arguing that local governments should have known rising global temperatures would lead to heavier rains and did not do enough to fortify their sewers and stormwater drains.

The legal debate may center on whether an uptick in natural disasters is foreseeable or an "act of God." The cases raise the question of how city governments should manage their budgets before costly emergencies occur.

"We will see more and more cases," said Michael Gerrard, director of the Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School in New York. "No one is expected to plan for the 500-year storm, but if horrible events are happening with increasing frequency, that may shift the duties."

Gerrard and other environmental law experts say the suits are the first of their kind.

Lawyers for the localities will argue government immunity protects them from prosecution, said Daniel Jasica of the State's Attorney's Office in Lake County, which is named in the Illinois state court suit.

"If these types of suits are successful - where is the money going to come from to pay the lawsuits? The taxpayers," he said. The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, also named in the suits, declined to comment.

Several class actions accusing the Army Corps of Engineers of failing to secure levees breached during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 were mostly dismissed last year on immunity grounds.
"It's a long shot for the insurance companies, but it's not completely implausible, and if you have enough cases like this going forward it might build some helpful precedent," said Robert Verchick, who served on the Obama administration's Climate Change Adaptation Task Force.

He said insurance companies are vocal about the rising costs of global warming and want to push cities to invest in prevention as a way to avoid future lawsuits.

COSTLY ADAPTATION

Chicago says it is already spending heavily on infrastructure to adapt to changing weather and has a comprehensive Climate Action Plan.

But the city's foresight may have made it a target, said Verchick, since Farmers cites the document as evidence officials were aware of the risks.

The Chicago law firm Sneckenberg Thompson & Brody, which represents Farmers, directed questions to the insurance company. Farmers spokesman Trent Frager would not specify how much the company paid in insurance claims, and none of the suits specified a damage amount.

Flooding struck Illinois in April 2013, and the federal government paid more than 64,000 Illinois households and individuals more than $218 million in aid and low-interest loans following the storms, said the state's Emergency Management Agency.

Fear of lawsuits can be a barrier to local government action, said Alice Kaswan from the University of San Francisco School of Law. Insurers or citizens may sue them for allowing building in areas prone to flooding or wildfires. Or property owners could argue their land was devalued if a locality bars construction in high-risk areas as a precautionary measure.

Lawsuits trying to pin liability for climate change on greenhouse-gas emitters have largely failed, since it is difficult to prove an individual polluter is responsible for global phenomena such as rising sea levels.

Ultimately, costs will need to be distributed more broadly if cities and individuals want to avoid higher insurance premiums or losing coverage altogether, Kaswan said. (Reporting by Mica Rosenberg; Editing by Howard Goller and Douglas Royalty)

 http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL1N0O11T620140516

New Yorker: Insuring the Apocalypse

by McKenzie Funk, The New Yorker, May 15, 2014


Last week, the White House released the National Climate Assessment, and the news is grim. Coral reefs are dying, shellfish will increasingly make us sick, and cherries are being decimated by weather extremes. Along the Eastern Seaboard, waters will rise up to 4 feet—perhaps 6 feet—by the end of the century, making Sandy-like storm surges a frequent event. California will continue to burn. Arizona will continue to burn. For most businesspeople, climate change seems bad for the bottom line.

But if you, like Berkshire Hathaway C.E.O. Warren Buffett, work in the disaster business, reports like the National Climate Assessment, all 829 pages of it, are free advertising. In a recent television appearance, Buffett suggested that global warming—at least the idea of it—has been good for the insurance industry. “I love apocalyptic predictions on it because, you’re right, it probably does affect rates,” he told an interviewer. “The truth is that writing U.S. hurricane insurance has been very profitable in the last five or six years.”

Buffett’s insurance companies have yet to adjust how they calculate their exposure to hurricane risk, he explained, though “that may change in ten years.” They haven’t been hoarding more cash to prepare for bigger storms; they haven’t been cancelling policies. His point was not that climate science is a sham but that what it has mostly done—for now, for him—is to prop up revenues and bring in new customers.

By 2012, insurers had introduced 1,148 climate-change products and services in 51 countries, according to a review by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. If you’re an executive today, for instance, especially if your business emits carbon, you may be interested in a policy from Liberty Mutual that protects against what the company calls “the continuously growing wave of litigation stemming from the alleged improper release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.” If you’re poor and African, you may be interested in reinsurer Swiss Re’s early efforts to insure you and 400,000 of your compatriots against drought. A 2007 program promised an US$18 million climate-adaptation payout to subsistence farmers if the right “weather trigger” was hit, with premiums paid by international donors. 

In 2008, while investigating how the insurance industry was faring in a warming world, I rode into a series of suburban wildfires near Los Angeles with a fire chief who worked part-time for A.I.G., the giant insurer that was then on the verge of being bailed out by the federal government. The company operated a squad of private firefighters, and, as helicopters clattered overhead, members of the A.I.G. team mostly drove around in haphazard circles, checking on client homes and sometimes spraying them with a fire retardant. They snuck across police lines. They made sure that A.I.G. clients had been evacuated. They made sure that brush wasn’t too close to any A.I.G.-protected structures. They stopped to get tacos, sip sodas, and watch news about the fire on a taqueria’s television set. They exchanged uneasy glances with public firefighters. They parked their trucks on a residential street for the better part of an hour and watched the public guys battle the blaze. The privateers didn’t do much good that day—not even for their own clients—but they made good money.

A boutique firefighting service is just one way that the insurance company attracts “high net worth individuals” to its private-client group. Another way, available in parts of Florida, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, and South Carolina, is its hurricane-protection unit: a jump team of contractors that arrives at your house armed with tarps and hammers, racing to beat looters and rain. If there are any holes, it patches them. If your expensive paintings or sculptures are threatened, it evacuates them.

The National Climate Assessment is, in fact, just what Buffett suggests: an argument for more insurance. As we face the future, insurance can help us grapple with the true cost of the present—something that we’ve largely proved incapable of doing by ourselves.

Outside of government agencies, the insurance industry is the primary funder of climate-change research. A trade group is sponsoring studies on how climate change affects tornadoes and hail. Another is backing university research on land ecosystems in a warming world, especially forests and crops. A British company is focusing on hurricane intensity and temperature rise, while an insurer in Bermuda researches cloud seeding to see whether the storms can be stopped before making landfall. A.I.G., for example, just released a climate report of its own, noting “a disproportionate increase in the number of extreme weather events” in North America. Buffett is right: in 10 years, if not sooner, calculations are bound to change. Those paying for the best research will get it first and, when they see an immediate risk, they’ll immediately price it in. For their own survival and for the sake of their shareholders, they will have to. Insurance rates will go up. And, if the risk is deemed too high or regulators block massive rate increases, as took place in coastal Florida some years ago, insurers will exit the market.

If profits equal progress, however, the insurance industry is on the right track. While researching a book that I wrote on the topic, I found that, when Hurricane Andrew landed in Florida and Louisiana, in 1992, insurers were caught unprepared, disbursing $1.27 in claims for every dollar of premium earned, for a total of US$23 billion. Those insurers started paying attention, and raised rates accordingly. Total claims were almost twice that when Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana 13 years later—but insurers still came out ahead, losing just 71.5 cents per dollar of premium. Industry profits were US$49 billion that year. We continue to gamble with our environmental policies. But the insurance industry, year after year, keeps winning. [Until they don't, and go away.]

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2014/05/insuring-the-apocalypse.html