US breaks 2020 record for billion-dollar natural disasters with 23 this year
This year's disasters have cost more than $57.9 billion and claimed at least 253 lives.
The American National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced recently that there have been 23 weather extreme events in America that cost at least $1 billion so far this year.
This breaks the 2020 record of 22 billion-dollar disasters. This year's disasters have cost more than $57.9 billion and claimed at least 253 lives.
The NOAA's current total doesn't include Storm Hillary which has been battering California and the drought that has been affecting the South and Midwest.
“We’re seeing the fingerprints of climate change all over our nation,” said Adam Smith, the NOAA's applied climatologist and economist who is tracking the billion-dollar disasters. “I would not expect things to slow down anytime soon.
“Exposure plus vulnerability plus climate change is supercharging more of these into billion-dollar disasters."
Tracking billion-dollar weather disasters
The NOAA has been tracking billion-dollar weather disasters in the United States since 1980, and since its last update a month ago, the NOAA has added eight new disasters to its list.
“This year a lot of the action has been across the center states, north central, south and southeastern states,” Smith said.
Smith had thought the 2020 record would last for a long time because the 20 billion-dollar disasters that year smashed the old record of 16. However, he no longer thinks this after that record was broken within three years.
With four months left of 2023, experts are worried that there are more billion-dollar disasters to come. As such, they said, there is a need to create new plans for such events, as well as act to reduce the effects of climate change in the future.
The Environment and Climate Change portal is produced in cooperation with the Goldman Sonnenfeldt School of Sustainability and Climate Change at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. The Jerusalem Post maintains all editorial decisions related to the content.
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