Temporal Fluctuations in Weather and Climate Extremes That Cause Economic and Human Health Impacts: A Review

In recent years, extreme weather events have led to ever larger economic losses in the United States. Multibillion dollar losses now occur with increasing frequency. The trend in losses has led many to conclude that the United States has witnessed changes in the frequency and/or intensity of extreme events. These perceptions are more than idle speculations— they underlie policy decisions with important social, economic, and political ramifications, such as those related to climate change and natural disasters. This paper has two objectives. First, it seeks to provide a review of recent work on trends in economic losses associated with extreme events in the United States. This paper focuses on phenomena identified at a 1997 U.S. Weather Research Program workshop as being the most significant from the standpoint of societal impacts. These phenomena are floods, hurricanes, winter storms, extreme heat and cold, thunderstormrelated events (hail, tornadoes, lightning), and droughts. Temporal Fluctuations in Weather and Climate Extremes That Cause Economic and Human Health Impacts: A Review