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Satire for Sanity
Natural Disasters and Climate Change
Students use maps and graphs to understand how the frequency of billion-dollar natural disaster events has changed over time. They analyze how climate change affected the 2017 California wildfires and the flooding from Hurricane Harvey.
Directions here;
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/activity/natural-disasters-and-climate-change/
U.S. 2020 Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters: Overview
2020 in Context…
In 2020, there were 22 weather/climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each to affect the United States. These events included 1 drought event, 13 severe storm events, 7 tropical cyclone events, and 1 wildfire event. Overall, these events resulted in the deaths of 262 people and had significant economic effects on the areas impacted. The 1980–2020 annual average is 7.0 events (CPI-adjusted); the annual average for the most recent 5 years (2016–2020) is 16.2 events (CPI-adjusted).
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2020 sets the new annual record of 22 events - shattering the previous annual record of 16 events that occurred in 2011 and 2017. 2020 is the sixth consecutive year (2015-2020) in which 10 or more billion-dollar weather and climate disaster events have impacted the United States. Over the last 41 years (1980-2020), the years with 10 or more separate billion-dollar disaster events include 1998, 2008, 2011-2012, and 2015-2020.
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Citing this information:
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters (2021). https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/, DOI: 10.25921/stkw-7w73
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/
Maybe observing the evolving catastrophe in terms of dollars will elevate the banshees of the Denier Choir into the realms of the castrato.