[robotastronaut]

Tools like these, while perhaps only answering very specific and limited questions, can be really useful when explaining phenomena to decision makers. More often than not (at least in America), the financial impact carries the most weight, particularly to those who might otherwise not care at all about climate change.

[rebuilder]

But what conclusion will decisionmakers draw? That climate change is something we need to address urgently, or that our population densities have grown and maybe we need to consider that in disaster planning?

[zosima]

But why not make the data as unbiased as possible? Why not show total cost for weather events as a percentage of GDP?

Or if only large-scale catastrophes have increased, the distribution of weather events?

Or maybe the percentage of houses destroyed or the total acres of land rendered temporarily useless?

Or number of weather-related casualties per capita?

While none of those are perfect or complete measurements, they'd all dodge several issues discussed here.