{"id":287416,"date":"2023-11-10T13:24:46","date_gmt":"2023-11-10T12:24:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=287416"},"modified":"2023-11-10T13:24:48","modified_gmt":"2023-11-10T12:24:48","slug":"us-flood-trends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=287416","title":{"rendered":"US Flood Trends"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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An incredible trend that you never hear about. In 2023 floods are far less of a threat to people and the economy than they were back in the 1940s when they were considered a major national problem.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Paul Homewood<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roger Pielke Jr skewers the latest alarmist hype:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Everything is getting worse, right? Flooding especially. <\/em>NPR tells us<\/em><\/a> that:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Heavier rainstorms driven by global warming are sending more water into residential neighborhoods from the Gulf Coast to New England to Appalachia to the Pacific Northwest.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

A Federal Emergency Management Official official <\/em>explained to The Washington Post<\/em><\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We know that as climate changes, the impacts are getting worse. We\u2019re seeing more and more flooding going on as a result.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Everybody knows this \u2014 it is <\/em>conventional wisdom<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only is the conventional wisdom on flooding wrong, data show that flood impacts as measured by direct economic losses have actually decreased by about 90% since 1940 as a proportion of U.S. GDP. The United States is in fact more resilient to flooding than it has ever been. The reduction in flood impacts is an incredible story of success sitting out in plain sight that is completely ignored, in favor of stories that instead tell us that down is up.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The figure below shows U.S. annual flood damage as a proportion of GDP. In 1940 flood losses amounted to a 2023 equivalent of about $50 billion per year, and in 2022 they totalled about $5 billion, a reduction of over 90%.\u00b9<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Full post here.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Pielke notes, economic impacts, whether good or worse, tell us nothing about climate impacts. If you want to analyse them, you need to look at the actual weather and flooding data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And according to the EPA, there is no evidence that climate change has made flooding worse in the USA. All we see is the usual mixed bag, including increased flooding magnitude in some areas, mainly the Northeast, and decreased magnitude in others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Figure 1.<\/strong> Change in the Magnitude of River Flooding in the United States, 1965\u20132015:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This figure shows changes in the size of flooding events in rivers and streams in the United States between 1965 and 2015. Blue upward-pointing symbols show locations where floods have become larger; brown downward-pointing symbols show locations where floods have become smaller. The larger, solid-color symbols represent stations where the change was statistically significant.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.epa.gov\/climate-indicators\/climate-change-indicators-river-flooding<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An incredible trend that you never hear about. In 2023 floods are far less of a threat to people and the economy than they were back in the 1940s when they were considered a major national problem.\u00a0 From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT By Paul Homewood Roger Pielke Jr skewers the latest alarmist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":287425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"An incredible trend that you never hear about. In 2023 floods are far less of a threat to people and the economy than they were back in the 1940s when they were considered a major national problem.\u00a0","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691818056,691818087,691824483,691824484],"class_list":{"0":"post-287416","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-climate-change","9":"tag-global-warming","10":"tag-roger-pielke-jr","11":"tag-u-s-floods","13":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/0image-286-1024x694-1.webp?fit=1024%2C694&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1cLK","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":428336,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=428336","url_meta":{"origin":287416,"position":0},"title":"Sorry, The Guardian and Other Media Outlets, Climate Change Isn\u2019t Causing Unusual Storms in Europe","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"27\/02\/2026","format":false,"excerpt":"In The Guardian article \u201cUnder water, in denial: is Europe drowning out the climate crisis?\u201d Ajit Niranjan claims that Europe\u2019s recent winter storms and flooding signal a worsening climate crisis driven by global heating. 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In fact, despite the title,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Al Jazeera\"","block_context":{"text":"Al Jazeera","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=al-jazeera"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0heavy-rain-g200873a67_1920.jpg?fit=1200%2C673&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0heavy-rain-g200873a67_1920.jpg?fit=1200%2C673&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0heavy-rain-g200873a67_1920.jpg?fit=1200%2C673&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0heavy-rain-g200873a67_1920.jpg?fit=1200%2C673&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0heavy-rain-g200873a67_1920.jpg?fit=1200%2C673&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/121246920"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=287416"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":287427,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287416\/revisions\/287427"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/287425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=287416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=287416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=287416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}