GEOS 112-L
Did floods get more severe over the past decades?

Advocates of global warming argue that the severity of floods should increase as ice caps melt, oceans get warmer and sea-levels rise. One quick way of estimating the damage done due to flooding is to check out insurance claims. The following site:

http://www.fema.gov/business/nfip/statistics/statscal.shtm

lists all sorts of interesting statistics regarding FEMA's flood insurance program. Look at some of the statistics and write a half page report (text only, any figures go extra) how the severity of floods in the United States has changed over the past 35 years. Please make sure your analysis is based on real data. You can download the bar charts, or actual data, do additional research - its all up to you. All I want is a well reasoned answer to my question: "Did floods get more severe over the past decades?"

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