Victoria Robinson in Stuff (New Zealand): Climate change is largely to blame for Australasia putting in almost a quarter of the world's natural disaster insurance claims last year. Data from major reinsurance provider Munich Re, shows that from 1980 to 2009, Australasia was responsible for 3% of natural disaster insurance claims in dollar terms. But after the Christchurch earthquake, floods in Queensland, and enormous hailstones in Melbourne and Perth, that skyrocketed to 22% last year.
Munich Re, in its own report on the deluge of natural disasters, said climate change "is real and continuing" and cited floods in Pakistan and wildfires caused by a heatwave in Russia. The Christchurch quake was not climate-change related. Munich Re said 2010 was one of the warmest years since 1850 and featured the second-highest number of loss-related weather catastrophes since 1980, when it started keeping data.
Niwa principal climate scientist Dr James Renwick agreed that weather events like heavy rain were linked to global warming. "It's possible part of the change since the 1980s is natural variation, but I'm sure there's a climate change component. We know the globe has warmed and it's well-documented that the occurrence of extreme rainfalls around the world has increased in a way that's consistent with the climate models," he says.
"It's just what you'd expect – you warm things up, more moisture, more energy, more rain falls. There's definitely a climate change component in extreme rainfalls around the world."...
Thomson River in flood at Jundah, Queensland, 1950
No comments:
Post a Comment