Estimated Deaths and Billion Dollar Losses from Extreme Events in the United States, 2004-2013

Figure 5

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Jesse E. Bell

This figure appears in chapter executive-summary of the The Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health in the United States: A Scientific Assessment report.

This figure provides 10-year estimates of fatalities related to extreme events from 2004 to 2013,a1b08f2f-e94c-4628-b82a-a646e71116ec as well as estimated economic damages from 58 weather and climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion (see Smith and Katz 2013 to understand how total losses were calculated).4fe32146-a968-4dde-8a2b-df2aa2eabdd4 These statistics are indicative of the human and economic costs of extreme weather events over this time period. Climate change will alter the frequency, intensity, and geographic distribution of some of these extremes,dd5b893d-4462-4bb3-9205-67b532919566 which has consequences for exposure to health risks from extreme events. Trends and future projections for some extremes, including tornadoes, lightning, and wind storms are still uncertain (see Ch. 4: Extreme Events).

Free to use with credit to the original figure source.

The time range for this figure is January 01, 2004 (00:00 AM) to December 31, 2013 (23:59 PM).

This figure was created on February 23, 2015.

The spatial range for this figure is 24.50° to 49.28° latitude, and -124.80° to -66.95° longitude.

This figure was derived from dataset using the activity estimated-noaa-nws-us-natural-hazard-statistics--process.
This figure was derived from dataset using the activity estimated-noaa-ncdc-billion-dollar-weather-climate-disasters--process.

References :

• US billion-dollar weather and climate disasters: Data sources, trends, accuracy and biases (4fe32146)
• webpage Weather Fatalities (a1b08f2f)
• Climate Change Impacts in the United States: The Third National Climate Assessment (dd5b893d)