ABSTRACT

Nowadays, following every weather disaster quickly follow estimates of economic loss. Quick blame for those losses, or some part, often is placed on claims of more frequent or intense weather events. However, understanding what role changes in climate may have played in increasing weather-related disaster losses is challenging because, in addition to changes in climate, society also undergoes dramatic change. Increasing development and wealth influence exposure and vulnerability to loss – typically increasing exposure while reducing vulnerability. In recent decades a scientific literature has emerged that seeks to adjust historical economic damage from extreme weather to remove the influences of societal change from economic loss time series to estimate what losses past extreme events would cause under present-day societal conditions. In regions with broad exposure to loss, an unbiased economic normalisation will exhibit trends consistent with corresponding climatological trends in related extreme events, providing an independent check on normalisation results. This paper reviews 54 normalisation studies published 1998–2020 and finds little evidence to support claims that any part of the overall increase in global economic losses documented on climate time scales is attributable to human-caused changes in climate, reinforcing conclusions of recent assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

抽象的

如今，在每次天气灾害发生之后，都会迅速估计经济损失。对于那些损失或部分损失，通常要归咎于更频繁或更强烈的天气事件。但是，了解气候变化在与天气相关的日益增加的灾害损失中可能起什么作用是具有挑战性的，因为除了气候变化之外，社会也在发生巨大变化。发展和财富的增加会影响风险敞口和脆弱性–通常在减少风险的同时增加风险敞口。最近几十年来，出现了科学文献，试图调整极端天气造成的历史经济损失，以从经济损失时间序列中消除社会变化的影响，以估计在当今社会条件下，极端事件所造成的损失。在遭受广泛损失的地区，无偏见的经济正常化将显示与相关极端事件中相应气候趋势一致的趋势，从而对标准化结果进行独立检查。本文回顾了1998年至2020年发表的54项标准化研究，并没有证据支持这样的说法，即气候时间尺度上记录的全球经济损失总体增长的任何部分都归因于人为引起的气候变化，从而强化了最近对气候变化评估的结论。政府间气候变化专门委员会。