The causes of natural disasters such as floods, forest fires, thermal waves and droughts are often connected to a complex combination of physical processes that occur in multiple scales of time. It is known as a ‘composite event’ when several processes, climatic drivers and hazards are combined to have a considerable impact. As extreme events often interact and depend spatially or temporarily, considering that only a driver and/or danger can at the same time lead to a risk substimacy.
When studying alternative results, Dr. Gordon Woo, Catastropist at Risk Management Solutions, London, United Kingdom, reviewed integral literature to obtain new ideas about composite climate risk, especially in relation to the serious impact consequences related to events Extreme climatic, and suggested the creation of a database of background compound events. The study was published in the magazine Climate climate and extremes last February.
According to Dr. Woo, research on composite events and climate change is a key step to strengthen the robustness of current risk models. Climate change projections are uncertain due to three factors: human induced forcing; The climate response to this forcing; and the behavior of the real climate at a particular moment. “The first governs a choice of the climate change scenario. The second is epistemic uncertainty, which can be reduced as knowledge improves but is subjective. The third is a random uncertainty, which reflects randomness in the realization of the climate for a particular time window, “said Dr. Woo.
It is possible to visualize the uncertainty of response to climate change through a variety of visually consistent stories configurations. The physical laws of thermodynamics limit the quantitative uncertainty of global warming. Associated with these there will be a substantial random component that determines the intensity of the extreme climate. Taking into account random uncertainty in catastrophe meteorological risk models, it is particularly useful to make prudent insurance decisions, since estimating uncertainty is crucial for this process.
Advances in the science of catastrophes often come from large catastrophes. After such events, changes in construction codes and risk management are probable. A space phase analysis of historical extreme weather events can also produce processable ideas. Dr. Woo emphasized: “Contrafactual analysis provides new ideas about the impact potential associated with extreme compound events, which cannot be obtained by means of events or statistical analysis.” A lot of time and effort are needed to study the random uncertainty, generally associated with significant historical events. Otherwise, most high -soul studies are not carried out to find rare extreme events.
To interpret climate change scenarios, a database of background compound events would be useful. In addition, it will contribute to the studies of attribution of climate change, with the objective of quantifying the impact of natural forces and caused by humans on extreme events. Dr. Woo declared in his critical review that a database of background compound events would facilitate the creation of a narrative about the future climate. “The online database must provide much more information than a list of qualitative dates and descriptions. It must include impact evaluations and traces of hazards associated with the backs, ”he added.
Lessons learned from the past can help us better imagine climate in the future. The scenarios can be developed by exploring counterfactuals, even if they do not have historical precedents. Such scenarios have the potential to promote future disaster mitigation efforts.
Main image magazine and credit reference:
Woo, Gordon. “A contrafactic perspective on compound climate risk.” Climate climate and extremes 32 (2021): 100314. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2021.100314
About the author
Dr. Gordon Woo, Ph.D.
Dr. Gordon Woo is a catastrophic in risk management solutions that address quantitative aspects of all extreme risks and risks, especially those that involve complex dynamics. In 2004, Newsweek magazine appointed him as one of the world’s main catastropists. He has written widely about the risk assessment and is the author of the Imperial College pressbooks: “The Mathematics of Natural Catastrophes (1999)” and “Catastrophe calculation (2011)”. His recent research has focused on the analysis of background risks, exploring alternative achievements of past danger events. This type of analysis investigates the hazard border so that it can lead to the discovery of black swans, unprecedented historical events. This branch of the analysis is potentially very insightful in the study of climate risk. A graduate from the University of Cambridge in Mathematics completed his Ph.D. in the MIT in theoretical physics as a scholar of Kennedy and was a member of Harvard’s Fellows Society. He is currently a visiting professor at the Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction of the University College London, as well as attached professor at the Catastrophe Risk Management Institute, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. In addition, it is the main specialized editor of the Geohazards and Georiscos section of Frontiers in Earth Science.
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