In 2006 I co-organized a major international workshop with Peter Höppe, of Munich Re, to focus on the role of climate change, including anthropogenic climate change due to greenhouse gases, in the increasing trend of global disaster losses. This workshop resulted in a set of consensus statements that were subsequently published in Science (PDF) and cited by the IPCC AR4 report. For those interested in what we concluded, in this post I have reproduced the Executive Summary of the meeting report (those wanting more can go here) as well as a list of the Workshop participants.Comments and questions are welcomed. I believe that the workshop conclusions are as current now as then, and so too does my collaborator Peter Höppe who wrote (along with two other workshop participants) earlier this year that their work "confirm[s] the consensus reached in May 2006 at the international workshop in Hohenkammer attended by leading experts on climate change and natural catastrophe losses."
If you have questions about the Workshop, the consensus statements or research in this area, just ask.
Executive Summary of the Report of the Workshop on “Climate Change and Disaster Losses: Understanding and Attributing Trends and Projections”
25-26 May 2006
Hohenkammer, Germany
On the basis of collaboration between Peter Höppe, Munich Re, and Roger Pielke, Jr., University of Colorado, an international workshop on climate change and disaster loss trends was held in May 2006 in Hohenkammer, Germany with sponsorship from Munich Re, the U.S. National Science Foundation, GKSS Research Center, and the Tyndall Centre. In total 32 experts in the fields of climatology and disaster research from various parts of the world (13 countries) participated.
"White papers" from 25 participants were submitted in advance and formed the basis of the discussions. This Executive Summary reports 20 statements which each represent a consensus among participants on issues of research and policy as related to the workshop’s central organizing questions. A Workshop Summary Report follows which provides greater detail on the statements. The participant white papers, biographies, and workshop agenda are also included.1 The focus of the workshop was on two central questions:
• What factors account for increasing costs of weather related disasters in recent decades?
• What are the implications of these understandings, for both research and policy?
To be clear about terminology, we adopted the IPCC definition of climate change. According to the IPCC (2001) climate change is
“Climate change refers to a statistically significant variation in either the mean state of the climate or in its variability, persisting for an extended period (typically decades or longer). Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or external forcings, or to persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use.”2The IPCC also defines climate variability to be
“Climate variability refers to variations in the mean state and other statistics (such as standard deviations, the occurrence of extremes, etc.) of the climate on all temporal and spatial scales beyond that of individual weather events. Variability may be due to natural internal processes within the climate system (internal variability), or to variations in natural or anthropogenic external forcing (external variability).”3We use the phrase anthropogenic climate change to refer to human-caused effects on climate.
Consensus (unanimous) statements of the workshop participants:
1. Climate change is real, and has a significant human component related to greenhouse gases.Notes:
2. Direct economic losses of global disasters have increased in recent decades with particularly large increases since the 1980s.
3. The increases in disaster losses primarily result from weather related events, in particular storms and floods.
4. Climate change and variability are factors which influence trends in disasters.
5. Although there are peer reviewed papers indicating trends in storms and floods there is still scientific debate over the attribution to anthropogenic climate change or natural climate variability. There is also concern over geophysical data quality.
6. IPCC (2001) did not achieve detection and attribution of trends in extreme events at the global level.
7. High quality long-term disaster loss records exist, some of which are suitable for research purposes, such as to identify the effects of climate and/or climate change on the loss records.
8. Analyses of long-term records of disaster losses indicate that societal change and economic development are the principal factors responsible for the documented increasing losses to date.
9. The vulnerability of communities to natural disasters is determined by their economic development and other social characteristics.
10. There is evidence that changing patterns of extreme events are drivers for recent increases in global losses.
11. Because of issues related to data quality, the stochastic nature of extreme event impacts, length of time series, and various societal factors present in the disaster loss record, it is still not possible to determine the portion of the increase in damages that might be attributed to climate change due to GHG emissions
12. For future decades the IPCC (2001) expects increases in the occurrence and/or intensity of some extreme events as a result of anthropogenic climate change. Such increases will further increase losses in the absence of disaster reduction measures.
13. In the near future the quantitative link (attribution) of trends in storm and flood losses to climate changes related to GHG emissions is unlikely to be answered unequivocally.
Policy implications identified by the workshop participants
14. Adaptation to extreme weather events should play a central role in reducing societal vulnerabilities to climate and climate change.
15. Mitigation of GHG emissions should also play a central role in response to anthropogenic climate change, though it does not have an effect for several decades on the hazard risk.
16. We recommend further research on different combinations of adaptation and mitigation policies.
17. We recommend the creation of an open-source disaster database according to agreed upon standards.
18. In addition to fundamental research on climate, research priorities should consider needs of decision makers in areas related to both adaptation and mitigation.
19. For improved understanding of loss trends, there is a need to continue to collect and improve long-term and homogenous datasets related to both climate parameters and disaster losses.
20. The community needs to agree upon peer reviewed procedures for normalizing economic loss data.
1 The views expressed in this report are those of the participating individuals. Institutional affiliations are only provided for identification purposes.
2 http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/518.htm
3 http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/518.htm
Workshop Participants (full bios here in PDF)
Christoph Bals
Germanwatch
Laurens Bouwer
Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit
Rudolf Brázdil
Institute of Geography, Masaryk University
Harold Brooks
NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory
Ian Burton
University of Toronto, Meteorological Service of Canada
Ryan Crompton
Risk Frontiers, Macquarie University
Andrew Dlugolecki
Andlug Consulting
Paul Epstein
Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard Medical School
Eberhard Faust
Climate Risks, Department of Geo Risks Research/Environmental Management
Munich Reinsurance Company
Indur Goklany
Science & Technology Policy, Office of Policy Analysis
Department of the Interior
Maryam Golnaraghi
Natural Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Programme
World Meteorological Organization (WMO)
Hervé Grenier
Risk modelling and weather derivatives
AXA Reinsurance
Bhola R. Gurjar
Indian Institute of Technology, Department of Civil Engineering
Armin Haas
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
Jaakko Helminen
Climate Service, Finnish Meteorological Institute
Peter Höppe
Department of Geo Risks Research/Environmental Management
Munich Reinsurance Company AG
Claudia Kemfert
DIW Berlin
Department Energy, Transport and Environment
Richard J.T. Klein
Stockholm Environment Institute
Thomas Knutson
Climate Dynamics and Prediction Group
Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory/NOAA
Thomas Loster
Munich Re Foundation
Robert Muir-Wood
Risk Management Solutions
Gunilla Öberg
Centre for Climate Science and Policy Research, Linköping University
Roger Pielke, Jr.
Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Colorado
Silvio Schmidt
GeoRisks Research Department, Munich Reinsurance Company
German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) Berlin
Gerd Tetzlaff
Meteorology, Universität Leipzig, Institut für Meteorologie
Hans von Storch
Institute for Coastal Research, GKSS Research Center
Koko Warner
Institute of Environment and Human Security, United Nations University
Martin Weymann
Sustainability & Emerging Risk Management, Swiss Reinsurance Company
Angelika Wirtz
Department of Geo Risks Research/Environmental Management
Munich Reinsurance Company AG
Anita Wreford
School of Environmental Sciences
University of East Anglia
Qian Ye
Center for Capacity Building, National Center for Atmospheric Research
Ricardo Zapata-Marti
Focal Point for Disaster Evaluation, ECLAC
CEPAL/México - Naciones Unidas
14 comments:
In the interest of starting a substantive discussion I have posted this over at Climate Progress on Joe's thread where he misrepresents this workshop report:
Dear Joe and Joe's readers,
I have posted up a copy of the 2006 Hohenkammer consensus on climate change and disaster losses here:
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/10/hohenkammer-consensus-on-climate-change.html
I will be happy to answer any questions about it or anything else over at my blog.
Many thanks.
Just to note that the comment I submitted at Romm's in #1 above has disappeared.
Now why would Romm not want his readers to see that? ;-)
-2-Roger,
Answer:
Because the so-called Liberal ideology can ONLY survive in an absolute intellectual vacuum!
Corollary:
The entire so-called Liberal ideology is PURE MYTHOLOGY!
Dr Pielke
I was wondering if you could offer your opinion a little on the advantages/disadvantages of consensus-driven science. Clearly, because the workshop eventually came to certain consensus statements there are some advantages to consensus. But it seems like consensus-driven science also is responsible in part for a rather toxic environment in which anyone who voices any disagreement is labeled a "denier?" If you have already discussed this, I apologize.
-2- Roger
For the same reason I was rejected yesterday can't accept that people should make up there mind by reading different point of view. I don't know if he will ever realize that he is only preaching to the believers, which is not that much people.
also,
Other than the IPCC what justify this statement:
(I mean what are the observable proof that co2 is a cause?)
"1. Climate change is real, and has a significant human component related to greenhouse gases."
In regards to posting your report at Climate Progress and the post subsequently erased, a rational person would then conclude that Climate Progress is not an open discussion forum but rather a closed discussion forum. The only information that is posted or accepted in a “closed discussion forum” is information that is in agreement with the forum.
Why would the discussion be “closed”? The “closed discussion forum” is related to Climate Progress acting as the Gate Keeper of information.
When the “Gate Keeper” attribute exists, then one immediately points to Politics and/or Agenda rather than an open discussion. “Gate Keeper“ mechanics are always the manipulation and non-dissemination of information.
Closed discussion forms utilizing Gate Keeper mechanics are always unreliable information resources. In other words, a closed discussion forum using Gate Keeper mechanics invalidates itself as an information source because the only information/argument/view/position/agenda, etc. is that of the Gate Keeper.
I have questions related to this in the Höppe paper:
"No trend is found for the period 1950–2005 as a whole. In the period 1971–2005, since the beginning of a trend towards increased intense cyclone activity, losses excluding socio-economic effects show an annual increase of 4% per annum. This increase must therefore be at least due to the impact of natural climate variability but, more likely than not, also due to anthropogenic forcings."
If there is zero trend from 1950 and the IPCC says that anthropogenic influences start in 1950 then logic dictates that there are no discernible anthropogenic influences on storms does it not? The increasing trend from 1970 must have been counterbalanced by a decreasing trend up to 1970 in order to get a zero trend from 1950. So that "more likely than not" is obtained just from cherry-picking a start date. A more scientific conclusion would use the longer trend and replace "more likely than not" with "not likely". Would you agree?
Also, why did Peter Höppe say that attribution is possible after agreeing in print that it wasn't? Did you speak to him about this? Was he misquoted too?
1) What is the evidence for any increases in storm activity or intensity?
2) Releasing a "consensus" report at the end of one of the least active hurricane seasons in living memory seems rather "Gore-effect" in its timing.
3) This sort of thing was au current after Hurricane Kartrina but now looks more like something in the pet rock /hula hoop genre.
-4-ruchi
When we held this workshop, we fully expected to produce a "consensus dissensus" -- that is, a statement of where we agreed to disagree. Much to our surprise we came to a consensus. I have written more about the notion of consensus and its relevance in climate policy debates here:
Pielke, Jr., R. A. 2005. Consensus about climate change? Science, 308: 952-953.
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-1761-2005.32.pdf
-7-jgdes
I suspect that the speculation in their paper was simply to ensure that they were not out of line with the IPCC AR4. However, as you point out there is a bit of a non sequitor in the IPCC logic, and no one that I am aware of claims to have detected trends in landfalls much less made attribution. So the statement in the paper speculative, and such speculation is fine so long as labeled as such.
Question:
What if man made disaster alarmists threw a mitigation party and no disasters came to their party?
OUCH!
Facts on USA Hurricanes -- From NOAA:
1) Most deaths - 1900, Galveston
2) Most costly - 1926, SE Florida/Alabama
(after adjusting for Inflation, Population and Wealth Normalization)
3) Most intense - 1935, FL Keys
4) Decade with most hurricane strikes (Continental US) - 1941-1950
5) Decade with most major hurricane strikes (Continental US) - 1941-1950
All this to replicate the IPCC?
Or, to put it another way, whats the significant difference between The Hohenkammer Consensus and the IPCC concensus, where these positions cover the same subject matter?
-13-bigcitylib
Actually the IPCC was silent on this subject, hence we saw the need for a workshop.
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