There’s a belief among alarmists that losses from weather related disasters is on the rise, and this it yet another reason why we have to “take action now”. For example, in an article by the New York Times,

2017 Set a Record for Losses From Natural Disasters. It Could Get Worse they state

Insured losses from weather-related disasters were at a high, making up most of the $135 billion. Munich Re executives warned that losses would continue to escalate.

“Some of the catastrophic events, such as the series of three extremely damaging hurricanes, or the very severe flooding in South Asia after extraordinarily heavy monsoon rains, are giving us a foretaste of what is to come,” Torsten Jeworrek, a Munich Re board member, said in a statement.

Roger Pielke Jr. corrects this misinformation and says on Twitter:

I updated my global disasters as pct of global GDP dataset using data from: @MunichRe (’90-’17) @AonBenfield (’00-’17) @WorldBank (GDP) @OMBPress (deflators)

From 1990-2017 losses as pct of GDP fell by about 1/3 (linear trend) That’s good news.

In the graph above, note that 2005 was the year of Hurricane Katrina, and 2017 was the year of Hurricane Harvey. Both of these weather events had an impact on total disaster losses, but also notice the lull in the years in between when there were no CAT3 or greater hurricanes making landfall on the USA.