US billion-dollar weather and climate disasters: data sources, trends, accuracy and biases

Abstract

this is an unformatted version of an article that has been accepted for publication in the journal natural hazards. the pre- publication version is available at link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11069-013-0566-5. u.s. billion-dollar weather and climate disasters: data sources, trends, accuracy and biases adam b. smith1 noaa national climatic data center, asheville, north carolina richard w. katz national center for atmospheric research, boulder, colorado corresponding author address: adam smith, noaa national climatic data center, 151 patton avenue, asheville, nc 28801. telephone: (828) 271-4183 email: adam.smith@noaa.gov abstract this paper focuses on the u.s. billion-dollar weather/climate disaster report by the national oceanic and atmospheric administration’s national climatic data center. the current methodology for the production of this loss dataset is described, highlighting its strengths and limitations including sources of uncertainty and bias. the insurance services office/property claims service, the u.s. federal emergency management agency’s national flood insurance program and the u.s. department of agriculture’s crop insurance program are key sources of quantified disaster loss data, among others. the methodology uses a factor approach to convert from insured losses to total direct losses, one potential limitation. an increasing trend in annual aggregate losses is shown to be primarily attributable to a statistically significant increasing trend of about 5% …

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