John Vidal

Sea ice in the Arctic has melted faster this year than ever recorded before, according to the US government's National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NS

ASA says new satellite measurements indicate unprecedented recent Greenland ice sheet surface melt. The images above show the extent of surface melt over Greenland’s ice sheet over just a four day period - from July 8 (left) and July 12 (right).

The task is to provide sound, independent information on the environment. We are a major information source for those involved in developing, adopting, implementing and evaluating environmental policy, and also the general public. 

Robert Bowen

AP reported today that thousands of fish died just last week in the Midwestern United States because the heat wave made the rivers too hot. At the same time a leading scientist said statistical analysis confirms the blistering heat is a result of climate change.

Most of the shown natural disaster happened on islands, near the sea and at tectonic borders.  Overall loss ranges from 8 - 125 billion USD. Damage partly insured. Earthquakes, Tsunamis and Hurricane have the biggest potential to destroy facilities.

The annual economic loss from natural disasters. So we can see that USA, EEA, China and Japan are the most economically impacted. 

The damage caused by the tsunami in Japan in March 2011. It’s very impressive the number of destroyed buildings. And how powerful a tsunami can be. Around 16,000 people got killed and more than 110,000 buildings got totally destroyed.  

The ten deadliest disasters are almost all located in developing country whereas USA only appears in top 10 in number of event. There are a high number of disasters in the USA, however compared to the other countries in the list, the loss is less. For example Indonesia, which had less disaster in 2009 than the USA, however, more people had been killed during these event, then in the USA. 

the most impacted population are in India, China and Africa. It’s because of the infrastructure and prevention are less developed than USA or EEA. Asia is vusialised as such a big part also because of the high population density. 

Repartition of all the natural disasters in the world in 2010.  You can see that there is quite a high number of blue and green dots, which means hydrological as well as meteorological events. Quite a high percentage is concentrated in the eastern part of the United States. As well as in South-East Asia occur a high number of these disasters.