180 The impactsof climate changeSee Table 3.6 on p. 76 of Watson, R.et al.(eds.) 2001,Climate Change 2001: Synthesis Report.
Because the incidence of such extreme events has increased signifi-
cantly in recent decades, information about the cost of the damage due
to them has been tracked by insurance companies. They have catalogued
both the insured losses and, so far as they have been able to estimate, the
total economic losses – these latter have shown an approximately tenfold
increase from the 1950s to the 1990s (see Figure 1.2 and box below).
Although factors other than climate change have contributed to this in-
crease, climate change is probably the factor of most significance. The
estimates for the 1990s of annual economic losses from weather-related