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The truth about global warming and hurricanes

29 June 2010

Some myths about how climate change will affect the insurance and reinsurance industry were debunked during a recent presentation from a National Hurricane Center scientist.

Read more: National Hurricane Center Chris Landsea Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

There is some good news and some bad news for underwriters from Dr Chris Landsea, the science and operations officer at the National Hurricane Center in Florida.

The good news is that, in his opinion, global warming has not, and will not radically alter the nature of windstorms. There will continue to be periods of high activity, followed by lulls.

The bad news is that we are now in the middle of a period of high activity that will probably last for another 20 years.

Landsea, who withdrew from participating in the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2005 because he thought that scientists were being misrepresented by the IPCC in the media, attracted an unprecedented large crowd to his London Market Association talk at Lloyd’s. 

In the talk, “Hurricanes and Global Warming: Expectations Versus Observations”, Landsea said that many people –...


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If last year was the year of the cat, then this year could be the year of the debt crisis.

Mike Van Slooten, head of international market analysis at Aon Benfield