North America incurred $510 billion in insured losses from weather catastrophes over the last three decades, and climate change is emerging as one of the reasons why, reinsurance giant Munich Re said Wednesday.

The German insurance company released a study on the toll of natural catastrophes, such as violent storms, floods, drought and heat waves, in North America between 1980 and 2011. “Nowhere in the world is the rising number of natural catastrophes more evident,” the company said.

“The study shows a nearly quintupled number of weather-related loss events in North America for the past three decades, compared with an increase factor of 4 in Asia, 2.5 in Africa, 2 in Europe and 1.5 in South America,” the company said in a summary.

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