Concerns among many climatologists that the recurring Pacific Ocean warming known as El Niño may lead to more catastrophic weather problems have attracted the attention of Vice President Al Gore. Though it is still a little-understood phenomenon of unknown risk, scientists generally agree that El Niño occurs every decade or so and tends to shift volatility of weather patterns from the Atlantic (where hurricanes are common) to the Pacific Ocean basin. This year, the westward ocean current targeting equatorial South America's Pacific coastline is particularly warm, leading to concerns over the magnitude of its effect on the weather.

After Gore warned California residents of potentially severe weather, the area's roofing repair business boomed and flood insurance sold at record rates under a taxpayer-subsidized program run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. But critics call the FEMA program a Ponzi scheme, saying that the agency must promote it through ever-greater scare tactics to keep ahead of obligations, and charge that the subsidies encourage building in risky areas.

Gore also linked the El Niño phenomenon to global warming, claiming that the severity and frequency of the former has increased dramatically along with carbon dioxide emissions. (The Vice President, however, was compelled to concede there was no evidence for his assertion.) At the Kyoto climate conference, Gore cited insurance payouts as evidence of increased severity of weather events in general. The Vice President announced, "We have had many such [severe storms] in recent years. Our insurance industry encountered an event with losses of more than $1 billion only once prior to 1988. Since that time they have encountered 17 such events."

Actually, there have been only 10 such costly catastrophes since 1988, three of which (two earthquakes, one fire) were not weather-related. Of the remainder, the property-claims service division of the American Services Group, which certifies catastrophic occurrences for the insurance industry, offers a different interpretation: "Despite their economic impact, only Hurricane Andrew (#3) ranks among the top-10 most intense hurricanes during the period 1900-1996. In fact, only two storms since 1980 (Hugo 1989 and Andrew 192) rank among the most intense storms of the century." They add: "The apparent disparity of damage created by recent hurricanes and their intensity is a product of demographic shifts and escalating building values. Since 1940, population density in the 50-mile corridor within the U.S. coastline has increased from 44 people per square mile to over 140. More than half the U.S. population now lives within 50 miles of the coast."

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