Billion-dollar weather disasters in 2022 cost US $165 billion

CNN —
The United States was lashed by 18 catastrophic extreme weather and climate disasters costing at least $1 billion each last year, a new report shows. They came in the form of tornadoes, extreme heat and cold, deadly flooding and hurricanes and a climate change-fueled drought in the West.
When taken together, the country’s so-called billion-dollar disasters inflicted at least $165 billion in damage last year — surpassing 2021 disasters in cost — and caused at least 474 deaths, according to the report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Hurricane Ian, the Category 4 storm that left a trail of devastation across the Caribbean and Florida, carried the highest economic toll of nearly $113 billion, along with a death toll of 152, NOAA reported.
The second-costliest disaster was a blistering summer heat wave and the historic drought, which spread from the West to the Mississippi River, totaling about $22.2 billion in damages.
Over the last seven years, 122 separate billion-dollar disasters have killed at least 5,000 people and cost the US more than $1 trillion in damages, the agency said.
At the annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society this week, where NOAA officials will present their findings, scientists say the fingerprints of climate change are all over these extreme weather disasters.
“What we’ve learned over the past 20 years is that extreme events are the face of climate change,” Stephanie Herring, climate scientist at the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, told journalists on Monday.
People may not notice a small change in global average temperature, Herring said, but those changes “have huge impacts” on the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.
Five of the last six years, except 2019, have seen disasters exceed the $100-billion mark, a signal that extreme weather events are becoming more costly and destructive as climate change accelerates.
“We’re talking big money here and it’s consistent,” Adam Smith, applied climatologist with NOAA who led the report, told CNN. “This is another trend where the cost and the impacts are quite large and so we need to think about how to better mitigate future damages because we know these extremes will continue to happen.”
NOAA
Last year’s financial toll was third-highest on record so far, behind 2020 and 2021. But Smith noted the total cost could rise several billion dollars once NOAA accounts for the damages of the late-December blizzard and cold snap.
“We’re still calculating the cost of that event, which was so late in the year, but it’s clearly a several billion-dollar event and will actually add to the total we already have of $165 billion,” Smith said. “So the total of 2022 will actually exceed $165 once we add the Christmas, winter storm impacts on top of that number.”
Last year closed with a series of disastrous storms in the West, and California is still being hammered by torrential rain, causing destructive flooding. Scientists have found climate change is not just increasing the severity of extreme weather, it is interrupting the usual patterns and causing wild swings between dry and wet extremes. In California, the multiyear drought has dried out the land so intensely, it is less able to absorb heavy rainfall, making flooding more likely.
An aerial view of Lake Powell and the Glen Canyon Dam in Page, Arizona, on April 20. The Department of the Interior said on August 16 it is prepared to take action to limit the water releases from Lake Powell to prevent it from plunging below 3,525 feet above sea level by the end of 2023. Below that level, the Glen Canyon Dam, which forms the reservoir, cannot produce hydropower. Caitlin Ochs/Reuters Flames engulf a chair inside a burning home in Mariposa County, California, on July 23. The Oak Fire, which started near Yosemite National Park, burned nearly 20,000 acres and is California’s biggest wildfire of the year. The challenging terrain and abundant dry vegetation fueling the wildfire complicated efforts to tamp down its growth, a Cal Fire spokesperson told CNN. Noah Berger/AP Craig Miller sits in his stranded houseboat at Lake Mead near Boulder City, Nevada, on June 23. Miller had been living on the stranded boat for over two weeks after engine trouble and falling lake levels left the boat above the water level. John Locher/AP Some of the 20 hillside homes destroyed by the Coastal Fire are seen as cleanup work continues on June 17 in Laguna Niguel, California. The May 11 brush fire was fueled by windy and dry conditions amid California’s severe drought, which has been compounded by climate change. Flames raced up the hill to reach the multimillion-dollar houses after the fire started below in a nearby canyon. Mario Tama/Getty Images Firefighters battle a brush fire at Coronado Pointe in Laguna Niguel, California, on May 11. Statewide, January to April were the driest first four months on record, the US Drought Monitor reported. Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images A formerly sunken boat sits on cracked earth hundreds of feet from what is now the shoreline on Lake Mead near Boulder City, Nevada, on May 9. According to a new projection from the Department of the Interior, Lake Mead’s water level will be below 1,050 feet above sea level in January — the threshold required to declare a Tier 2 shortage starting in 2023. John Locher/AP A dead fish lies on a section of dry lakebed along Lake Mead on May 9. Mario Tama/Getty Images Michelle Peters, a technical and compliance manager for Poseidon Water, walks through the reverse osmosis building at the Claude Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant in Carlsbad, California, on March 30. The plant converts ocean water into municipal water. In August, Gov. Gavin Newsom laid out a multi-billion-dollar plan to preserve the state’s diminishing water supply for future years, which includes recycled water projects such as desalination of ocean water and salty water in groundwater basins. Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images A landscaping crew removes non-functional turf from a residential development in Las Vegas on March 30. Under a Nevada state law passed last year, patches of non-functional grass that serve only for aesthetic purposes must be removed in favor of more desert-friendly landscaping. Joe Buglewicz/The New York Times/Redux People walk on an area of Lake Powell that used to be underwater at Lone Rock Beach in Big Water, Utah, on March 27. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images The shrinking Great Salt Lake is seen from Antelope Island State Park in Utah on March 15. Human water consumption and diversion have long depleted the lake. Scientists worry they’re watching a slow-motion calamity unfold. Ten million birds flock to the Great Salt Lake each year to feed off of its now-struggling sea life, and more pelicans breed here than almost anywhere else in the country. Bryan Tarnowski/The New York Times/Redux In this GeoColor image from July 2021, smoke from numerous wildfires could be seen as gray-brown, in stark contrast to the white cloud cover over other parts of the continent. NOAA Visitors take photos in front of a thermometer in July 2021, at Death Valley National Park in Death Valley, California. Death Valley is known to be a hot place, but on July 9 it hit 130 degrees Fahrenheit for only the fifth time in recorded history. Roger Kisby/The New York Times/Redux These peaks of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, near Lone Pine, California, often have snow packs that last throughout the summer months. But there were none in July 2021. David McNew/Getty Images Golden Davis cools off in a mister along the Las Vegas Strip on July 9, 2021. The city tied its all-time temperature record of 117 degrees Fahrenheit over the weekend. John Locher/AP A utility crew works on power lines in July 2021, in front of a hillside that was burned by the Salt Fire in California’s Shasta County. Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images Annette Garcia, director of the Coachella Valley Horse Rescue, straps ice packs onto a horse’s legs to help keep him cool amid a water shortage in Indio, California, in July 2021. Mario Tama/Getty Images This aerial photo shows houseboats anchored at the Bidwell Canyon Marina in Oroville, California, in June 2021. As water levels continued to fall at Lake Oroville, officials were flagging houseboats for removal so they could avoid being stuck or damaged. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images People in Portland, Oregon, cool off at the Oregon Convention Center on Sunday, June 27, 2021. Portland set an all-time high of 112 degrees that day. It surpassed it a day later with a high of 116. Nathan Howard/Getty Images Park visitors in Big Water, Utah, walk on an area of Lake Powell that used to be underwater at Lone Rock Beach in June 2021. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images The exposed lake bed of the San Gabriel Reservoir is seen near Azusa, California, in June 2021. Mario Tama/Getty Images Ranchers Jim Jensen, center, and Bill Jensen inspect a trench they are working on to try to get more water to their ranch in Tomales, California, in June 2021. As the drought continues in California, many ranchers and farmers are beginning to see their wells and ponds dry up. They are having to make modifications to their existing water resources or have water trucked in for their livestock. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images California’s Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge, near the Oregon border, is seen in May 2021. The area has been severely affected by drought and the lack of irrigation waters from Upper Klamath Lake, which usually feeds into the refuge. Will Matsuda/The New York Times/Redux Firefighters battle a brushfire in Santa Barbara, California, in May 2021. AP This aerial photo shows rows of almond trees sitting on the ground during an orchard removal project in Snelling, California, in May 2021. Because of a shortage of water in the Central Valley, some farmers are having to remove crops that require excessive watering. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images In pictures: The West’s historic drought Prev Next
Smith underscored a few main factors contributing to the growing economic toll, including how people continue to move into harm’s way and the increased vulnerability given where and how structures are built.
And then there’s the climate crisis: “Climate change is intensifying many of these extremes that lead to billion-dollar disasters,” Smith said.
President Joe Biden in August signed the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act, which contains $370 billion for climate and clean energy tax credits and new programs. Analysts and estimates from the lawmakers show the law would significantly cut planet-warming emissions, which scientists say would ultimately lead to fewer and less-extreme climate disasters.
The funding, which is designed to be applied over the course of 10 years, pales in comparison to what the US is now spending each year on disasters.
“Time is of the essence,” Smith said. “Because all of these extremes, impacts, disasters, and fatalities have happened, there’s so many different lessons across many parts of the country, for many different disaster types and many different populations that we can start to implement. And sooner is certainly better.”
National Grid workers respond to a downed utility pole in Buffalo, New York, on December 27. The damage from the multi-state blizzard is still being calculated. Joed Viera/AFP/Getty Images
NOAA’s annual report only captures the costliest disasters and serves as a snapshot to quantify the toll of extreme weather and climate change across the US. Globally, extreme weather events in 2022 cost roughly $270 billion, new data from reinsurance company Munich Re shows. Hurricane Ian was the costliest disaster in Munich Re’s report, followed by the deadly flooding in Pakistan.
An extreme weather event or climate disaster occurred every day, on average, somewhere in the world over the last 50 years, the World Meteorological Organization reported in 2021, and the frequency of such events increased by a factor of five over the same period.
Around the world, the economic toll of the disasters has climbed sevenfold since the 1970s, the UN agency found.
The 18 billion-dollar disasters of 2022
Hurricane Ian, September 28-30: $112.9 billion
Western/Central drought and heat wave, 2022: $22.2 billion
Central US derecho, June 13: $ $3.2 billion
Western wildfires, spring and fall: $3.1 billion
North Central severe weather, May 11-12: $2.8 billion
Southern severe weather, April 11-13: $2.8 billion
Hurricane Fiona, September 17-18: $2.5 billion
North Central hail storms, May 19: $2.5 billion
North Central hail storms, May 9: $2.2 billion
Central severe weather, June 7-8: $1.9 billion
Kentucky and Missouri Flooding, July 26-28: $1.5 billion
Southeastern tornado outbreak, April 4-6: $1.5 billion
Southern tornado outbreak, March 30: $1.3 billion
North Central and Eastern severe weather, July 22-24: $1.3 billion
Southern and Central severe weather, May 1-3: $1.2 billion
Hurricane Nicole, November 10-11: $1 billion
Texas hail storms, February 21-22: $1 billion
Central and Eastern winter storm and cold wave, December 21-26: To be determined