U.K. heat wave demonstrates the danger of extremes
Natural disasters caused global losses of $65 billion in the first half of 2022, says a new mid-year report from Munich Re.
Natural disasters caused global losses of $65 billion in the first half of 2022, says a new mid-year report from Munich Re. This figure includes losses from severe flooding in Australia, devastating earthquakes in Afghanistan and Japan, tornadoes in the United States and severe heat and drought in areas of Europe, among other natural catastrophes. When it comes to the human cost, Munich Re found 4,300 people lost their lives due to natural disasters in the first half of the year.
Parts of England, in particular, are currently seeing the effects of record-breaking heat – reaching temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius, or 104 degrees Fahrenheit. While the U.K. is no stranger to occasional heat waves, this one is exceptional. According to Munich Re’s Chief Climate Scientist and head of the Climate Solutions Unit, Ernst Rauch, thanks to climate change, we should expect to see more frequent exceptional weather events in the future.
The U.K.’s jump in temperatures wasn’t an incremental change, either, Rauch explained in an interview with Property Casualty 360, but a significant record, and a demonstration of how the estimated 1.2 degrees centigrade the earth’s temperature has risen in the last 100-or-so years isn’t as insignificant as it may sound.
“That doesn’t sound much,” Rauch stated. “If today it were to be a degree warmer where you are, where we are, it’s ok, but what has changed and what it matters to the insurance industry is the probability distribution of extremes. Extremes have become much more likely, and the frequency of the extremes has increased… The extremes, that’s where people suffer, and that’s where we have the physical and the non-physical damages.”
The upside to the current situation in the U.K. is that it has revealed the ways in which European countries have learned from similar past situations; in particular, from the heat wave of 2003. Around 70,000 people died during that heat wave, Rauch explained, with many of the victims being people in nursing homes or elderly care facilities who were unable to access proper cooling or hydration.
“Communities have, with this shocking event of 2003, have started preparing much better for these heat waves and especially what is now, for instance, in France a rule… is that old age homes have to have rooms which can be air-conditioned so that people can spend the day in a cooler environment,” Rauch explained. “The rules are that they have to drink so much every hour or so in a hospital or in an old age home, so the caretaking has significantly improved… As of today, it looks that we learned our lessons and not so many people are dying.”
While fewer lives have been lost during this heat wave, there has still been plenty of loss – particularly due to drought. Things have become so dire that Italy declared a state of emergency July 5 for areas around the Po River, due to the worsening conditions. The Po, which is the longest river in Italy, has dropped to record-low levels thanks to the worst drought the area has seen in 70 years, and has dried enough in some areas that large expanses of sand are exposed, according to the European Space Agency.
In 2018, a similar drought affected the Rhine River, causing it to drop to levels that greatly impacted transportation and industry.
“Large companies along the River Rhine, for instance, which need the Rhine for the transportation of heavy goods – chemical industry, for instance – they had significant losses because they had to change from the transportation on the river to rail or cargo lorries, and that’s much more costly, so the capacity, transportation capacity, is not as high as on the river,” Rauch said about the 2018 drought. “Currently, we don’t have the same situation as it was in 2018, but we also don’t have the forecast that there’s going to be significant rain within the next ten to fourteen days.”
These extremes aren’t limited to summertime, however. According to Munich Re’s report, winter storms – particularly in February 2022 – that hit north and northeast Europe with hurricane-force winds caused $5.2 billion in losses, especially across Ireland, England, parts of Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and the Baltic Coast.
Between dryer summers and wetter winters, annual rainfall totals have remained steady overall, but this shifting balance doesn’t bode well for European countries.
“This trend is very much in-line with what science – IPPC but also local studies – has been anticipating,” said Rauch. “So, the summer rainfall amounts are decreasing. That’s a long-term trend. The winter rainfall actually increases in many parts of Europe, not by much but a little bit, so the interesting thing is, if you look at sort of the total annual rainfall amounts, they haven’t changed much across Europe. The distribution across the seasons… that has changed. More rain in the winter, and less rain in the summer… and so you have this issue with rivers and, for our farmers, agriculture, this is sort of an ongoing stress factor now since years, it’s sort of a constant… to harvest a crop or so early enough before it just dries out and is dead.”