09.12.2018

The 30 Costliest U.S. Hurricanes Have Not Increased in Intensity Over Time

As part of the 2nd edition of my Kindle e-book Inevitable Disaster: Why Hurricanes Can’t Be Blamed On Global Warming (which should go live tonight), I include the following graph, based upon data in a January 2018 U.S. Government report. In the top panel we see that the average monetary damages of the 30 most costly hurricane disasters in U.S history has gone up dramatically in recent decades. But in the 2nd panel we see that the average intensity of those 30 most costly storms has not increased.

Most recent (2018) U.S. Government analysis of the 30 most costly hurricane disasters in U.S. history, showing that increasing damages are due to increasing population density and infrastructure vulnerability, not due to storm intensity.

The increasing number of “damaging” storms in recent decades is, of course, an artifact of the increasing monetary damages with time: only the 30 most costly storms are included. Of course, this is what Roger Pielke, Jr. has been saying for years.
This article appeared on the Dr. Roy Spencer’s Global Warming website at http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/09/the-30-costliest-u-s-hurricanes-have-not-increased-in-intensity-over-time/]]>

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