ND : Record high level of weather related natural disasters

According to the worldwatch institute reports, the weather related natural disasters have increased to an all-time-high level in the recent years.

Some related facts:

In 2007 - 874 weather-related disas­ters worldwide, a 13-percent increase over 2006 and the highest number since the systematic recording of natural perils began in 1974.
Weather-related disasters around the world have been on the rise for decades. On average, 300 events were recorded every year in the 1980s, 480 events were recorded in the 1990s, and 620 events in the last 10 years.

Weather related disasters :

can be divided into - meteorogical, hydrological, climatological events. Further, meteorological event includes :
1> tropical cyclones such as hurricanes, typhoons, & cyclones.
2> Extratropical cyclones such as winter storms.
3> Local storms such as hailstorms, snow­storms, severe storms, thunderstorms, and tornadoes.

Hydrological events include :
1> Floods, that include general flood, flash flood, & coastal flood.
2> Wet mass movements including rockfalls, landslides, avalanches etc.

Climatological events include :
1> Extreme temperatures as a result of either of heat waves, cold waves, or extreme winter or summer conditions.
2> Droughts & wildfires as a result of forest fires, or brush fires, or urban fires etc.

In 2007, the weather-related disasters contributed 91% of the disasters all over the world that also included disasters like earthquake, tsunami etc. from weather-related disasters, about 81 percent of economic losses from natural catastrophes and 97 percent of insured losses were recorded. The main reasons that contributed in the weather related disasters and related global losses are socioeconomic factors viz. the rise in population, better standard of living, the concentration of people and values in large urban settings, and the settlement and industrialization of regions with extremely high exposure levels. And the urban population of developing and emerging countries is rising at an unpredictable rate.

The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ( IPCC) emphasizes the link between global warming (GW) and the significant likelihood of an increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events (ND). It is predicted with a probability >= 0.6 out of 1, that there will be more warmer, and few colder days and nights over the land areas, which will further lead to greater heat waves and thus greater precipitation, more areas affected by droughts, and more intense tropical cyclones, which will be further increasing the wweather related disasters.