U.S. Breaks Record for Billion-Dollar Climate Disasters in 2020

In a year defined by the coronavirus, the United States was also beset by a record number of major natural disasters, many amplified by climate change. A new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) identifies 22 disasters that caused at least $1 billion in damages across America, beating the previous record by six incidents, reports Christopher Flavelle for the New York Times.

Wildfires, hurricanes and floods in 2020 accumulated $95 billion in damages, the third highest total ever, and accounted for 262 deaths. These grim tallies track the increasingly destructive reality of climate change on our planet, reports Thomas Frank for E&E News. Per the Times, 2020 was also one of the warmest years on record, a trend driven by decades of human activities flooding Earth’s atmosphere with greenhouse gases.

In a NOAA statement, officials explain climate change is “increasing [the] frequency of some types of extreme weather that lead to billion-dollar disasters—most notably the rise in vulnerability to drought, lengthening wildfire seasons in the Western states, and the potential for extremely heavy rainfall becoming more common in the eastern states. Sea level rise is worsening hurricane storm surge flooding.”

However, the country's increasing population and wealth have also played important roles in the rising costs of disasters. “Much of the growth has taken place in vulnerable areas like coasts and river floodplains,” NOAA officials write. “Vulnerability is especially high where building codes are insufficient for reducing damage from extreme events.”

These nearly two-dozen disasters spanned the U.S., from the wildfires in the West, to the hurricanes and tropical storms that battered the east coast.

A record-setting 12 named storms ravaged the gulf and eastern coastlines of the country, with seven of those topping $1 billion in damages. Meanwhile, California saw five of the six biggest fires in state history, with fires charring 10.3 million acres across the whole of the American West, reports Oliver Milman for the Guardian.

“The record number of climate change-exacerbated weather disasters this year drives home the fact that, as I like to say, the impacts of climate change are no longer subtle,” Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Penn State, tells the Guardian.

“We’re seeing them play out in real time. Hopefully this is the year where we finally see the sort of action, by the US and the rest of the world, that is necessary to prevent things from getting worse.”

Alex Fox | | READ MORE

Alex Fox is a freelance science journalist based in California. He has written for the New York Times, National Geographic, Science, Nature and other outlets. You can find him at Alexfoxscience.com.