Temperature Variability and Natural Disasters

TL;DR

This study finds that temperature variability, rather than average temperature, predicts natural disasters, highlighting the importance of climate stability in disaster risk assessment and mental health impacts.

Contribution

It provides the first empirical evidence linking temperature variability to natural disasters, using extensive data and robust regression analysis.

Findings

Temperature variability predicts natural disasters.

Higher temperature levels are not the main predictor.

Results are consistent across multiple datasets.

Abstract

This paper studies natural disasters and the psychological costs of climate change. It presents what we believe to be the first evidence that higher temperature variability and not a higher level of temperature is what predicts natural disasters. This conclusion holds whether or not we control for the (incorrectly signed) impact of temperature. The analysis draws upon long-differences regression equations using GDIS data from 1960-2018 for 176 countries and the contiguous states of the USA. Results are checked on FEMA data. Wellbeing impact losses are calculated. To our knowledge, the paper's results are unknown to natural and social scientists.