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SCIENCETuesday 9 January 2018
U.S. hits record for costly weather disasters: $306 billion
By SETH BORENSTEIN In this Dec. 7, 2017, file photo, firefighter Ryan Spencer battles a wildfire as it burns along a ly a combination of more
AP Science Writer hillside toward homes in La Conchita, Calif. flooding, heat and storm
WASHINGTON (AP) — With surge from climate change
three strong hurricanes, Associated Press along with other non-cli-
wildfires, hail, flooding, tor- mate changes, such as
nadoes and drought, the expensive hurricane. $1 billion in damage from of the American Meteoro- where buildings are put,
United States tallied a re- Western wildfires fanned by the 16 weather disasters in logical Society. where people move and
cord high bill last year for heat racked up $18 billion 2017. NOAA announced its fig- how valuable their prop-
weather disasters: $306 bil- in damage, triple the U.S. “While we have to be care- ures at the society’s an- erty is, said Deke Arndt,
lion. wildfire record, according ful about knee-jerk cause- nual conference in Austin, NOAA’s climate monitor-
The U.S. had 16 disasters to NOAA. effect discussions, (many Texas. ing chief.
last year with damage ex- Besides Texas, Florida and scientific studies) show that The U.S. averages six of the “Perhaps it is time to man-
ceeding a billion dollars, Puerto Rico, California, Col- some of today’s extremes billion-dollar weather di- date urban development
the National Oceanic and orado, Minnesota, Nebras- have climate change fin- sasters each year, costing in a more resilient and sus-
Atmospheric Administra- ka, Missouri, Illinois, Louisi- gerprints on them,” said a bit more than $40 billion tainable manner given the
tion said Monday. ana, Mississippi, Alabama, University of Georgia mete- annually. increasing frequency of
That ties 2011 for the num- Tennessee and North Car- orology professor Marshall The increase in billion-dol- weather extremes, espe-
ber of billion-dollar disas- olina all had more than Shepherd, a past president lar weather disasters is like- cially along the nation’s
ters, but the total cost blew coasts,” Susan Cutter, di-
past the previous record of rector of the University of
$215 billion in 2005. South Carolina’s Hazards
Costs are adjusted for infla- and Vulnerability Research
tion and NOAA keeps track Institute, said in an email.
of billion-dollar weather di- The weather agency also
sasters going back to 1980. said that 2017 was the third
Three of the five most ex- hottest year in U.S. records
pensive hurricanes in U.S. for the Lower 48 states with
history hit last year. an annual temperature of
Hurricane Harvey, which 54.6 degrees (12.6 degrees
caused massive flooding in Celsius) — 2.6 degrees
Texas, cost $125 billion, sec- warmer than the 20th cen-
ond only to 2005’s Katrina, tury average .
while Maria’s damage in Only 2012 and 2016 were
Puerto Rico cost $90 billion, warmer. The five warm-
ranking third, NOAA said. est years for the Lower 48
Irma was $50 billion, mainly states have all happened
in Florida, for the fifth most since 2006.q
Ancient DNA gives glimpse of
ancestors of Native Americans
By MALCOLM RITTER ago is giving scientists the Decoding the infant’s
AP Science Writer best look yet at the ge- complete set of DNA let
NEW YORK (AP) — DNA netics of the ancestors of researchers estimate the
from an infant who died in today’s native peoples of timing of key events in
Alaska some 11,500 years the Americas. the ancestral history of to-
day’s Native Americans
and indigenous peoples of In this August 2013 photo provided by the University of Alaska,
Canada and Central and excavators work at the Upward Sun River discovery site in
South America. Alaska.
Expert said that while the
new work doesn’t radi- Associated Press
cally change the outlines
of what scientists have The infant girl was buried the far north of North Amer-
thought, it provides more about 50 miles southeast of ica, said anthropologist
detail and better evidence Fairbanks, and her remains Ben Potter of the University
than what was available are the earliest known in of Alaska Fairbanks.q
before.
