The End of NOAA's Disastrous "Billion Dollar Disasters" Database

NOAA's National Center for Environmental Data, Asheville

Some long overdue good news: NOAA is abandoning its awful "billion dollar disaster" database (BDDD). 

"The dataset and how it is used represents one of the most spectacular abuses of science you will ever see — and obviously so, it is not even close. Yet, the U.S. government and big media outlets continue to promote the dataset, while experts who know better stand by silently."

Not only have I also been one of its early critics, it has been the target of a highly critical peer-reviewed paper, and the just-departed Administrator of NOAA, Dr. Rick Spinrad (who should have fixed the database) isn't even defending it:

"Spinrad says he doesn't necessarily disagree with Pielke's [criticisms of the database], but believes it should be a collaboration between an office like the Bureau of Economic Analysis and NOAA."

As seems to habitually be the case with the MSM and the Trump Administration, most of the reporting is mis-stating what is being done. All of the data used to compile the data the BDDD will still reside at the National Center for Environmental Data so anyone or any entity who wishes to create their own version or who wishes to research a specific event can do so. 

Breaking News, 4:05pm Thursday. Dr. Roger Pielke posted the an article on the end of the BDDD. An excerpt is below. The bold print is mine. 

"The [Washington] Post includes an important nugget of information:

'The many recent departures at the agency include Adam Smith, who led the billion-dollar disaster program for 15 years before leaving last week.'

Because the methodologies used by NOAA to generate loss estimates are neither public nor (to my knowledge) written down, it may be that with Smith’s departure the agency may have lost capacity to carry on. 

Keep a lookout for the tabulation to reappear at a climate advocacy group, which is probably where this incarnation best fits.

Interestingly, sometime after my paper was published last year, NOAA added a disclaimer of sorts to the BDD homepage:

'This product has no focus on climate event attribution.' 

After years of saying the opposite, encouraging media to report the opposite, and watching policy makers claim the opposite, it turned out that it was too late for NOAA to get the horse back in the barn. 

One other behind-the-scenes detail — Next Wednesday the House Science Committee was scheduled to hold a hearing on the BDD tabulation and NOAA’s efforts to correct its many substantive and procedural issues. I had agreed to testify. That hearing is now off the schedule for next week.

From Mike: This hearing has been postponed or cancelled. 

Not happening next week.

I have no idea who else may have been invited to testify, but I am absolutely certain that with the retirement of NOAA’s most knowledgeable employee on the BDD tabulation, the prospects of trying to defend it before Congress could not have been that appealing to the agency. The same goes for any external expert.

I suspect that today’s announcement was more about NOAA opportunistically getting rid of some dirty laundry as the Trump Administration takes a sledgehammer to the agency — Something that I [Pielke, Jr.] strongly oppose."