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September 06, 2005
Katrina in Context: A Blog Series
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Environment
On Saturday the New York Times ran a story that described efforts to total the economic impacts of Katrina. The story described the work of a catastrophe modeling firm which estimated that Katrina's costs could top $100 billion. What does this mean? What does this tell us about Katrina in historical perspective? About what we should expect for the future? What knowledge is grounded in peer-reviewed science? What is the significance of understanding Katrina in context for actions that we (and who is we?) might take to increase the odds of better ourcomes in the future?
For those of us interested in policies with respect to hurricanes and other extreme events it is important to accurately place Katrina into historical and future context, so that decisions about the future might be well calibrated with respect to risks and vulnerabilities.
We have conducted a wide range of research over the past 10 years on hurricane and flood impacts, and over the next week or so I will be working through this research so that people interested in impacts and policy can get a better sense of the work that lies behind the discussions that often appear on this site.
There are a lot of possible topics to discuss, and below is the list of subjects that I am starting out with. If you don't see a subject on this list that you'd like to have discussed, just let us know and we'll do the best to accommodate the request.
1. Making sense of economic impacts - Comparing apples with apples
2. Historical economic losses from Hurricanes - Where does Katrina rank?
3. Historical economic losses from floods - Where does Katrina rank?
4. Historical human impacts (non-economic) - Where does Katrina rank?
5. Federal disaster declarations - Understanding hazards and hazard politics
6. Federal disaster declarations - Hurricanes and Hurricane-Spawned Floods
7. Risk management versus vulnerability reduction - Different approaches to policy
8. Climate change, societal change and extreme weather events - Science and Policy
9. Summary Thoughts - What next after Katrina?
Comments
Roger,
Much is being made about Global Warming and its impact on Cyclone frequency and intensity since Katrina. Whilst the consensus appears to be that there is no evidence that the number of Cyclones have increased there is some suggestion that their intensisty has. Do you beleive this is the case?
I noticed a very interesting article at realclimate about Katrina which asks if it can be blamed on Global Warming it suggests that it can't but qualifies this by saying that based on models that intensity may have increased and will likely increase in the future. When Katrina made landfall in Louisiana 70 miles south south east of New Orleans it had been downgraded to a Category 4 cyclone. Do you think the impact of Katrina would have been a) much the same, b) much less or c) much more if it had instead been a category 3 cyclone that passed directly over New Orleans? I ask this because it appears that where a cyclone makes landfall is as significant as its intensity.
Posted by: Ross McNaughton at September 6, 2005 06:52 PM