Assessing the global risk of climate change to re/insurers using catastrophe models and hazard maps

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Jones ◽  
Emma Raven ◽  
Jane Toothill
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Flood Risk ◽  
River Flow ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Flood Hazard ◽  
Insurance Industry ◽  
Global Climate Model ◽  
Hazard Maps ◽  
The Impact

<p>In 2018 worldwide natural catastrophe losses were estimated at around USD $155 billion, resulting in the fourth-highest insurance payout on sigma records, and in 2020 JBA Risk Management (JBA) estimate 2 billion people will be at risk to inland flooding. By 2100, under a 1.5°C warming scenario, the cost of coastal flooding alone as a result of sea level rise could reach USD $10.2 trillion per year, assuming no further adaptation. It is therefore imperative to understand the impact climate change may have on global flood risk and insured losses in the future.</p><p>The re/insurance industry has an important role to play in providing financial resilience in a changing climate. Although integrating climate science into financial business remains in its infancy, modelling companies like JBA are increasingly developing new data and services to help assess the potential impact of climate change on insurance exposure.</p><p>We will discuss several approaches to incorporating climate change projections with flood risk data using examples from research collaborations and commercial projects. Our case studies will include: (1) building a national-scale climate change flood model through the application of projected changes in river flow, rainfall and sea level to the stochastic event set in the model, and (2) using Global Climate Model data to adjust hydrological inputs driving 2D hydraulic models to develop climate change flood hazard maps.</p><p>These tools provide outputs to meet different needs, and results may sometimes invoke further questions. For example: how can an extreme climate scenario produce lower flood risk than a conservative one? Why may adjacent postcodes' flood risk differ? We will explore the challenges associated with interpreting these results and the potential implications for the re/insurance industry.</p>

High-Resolution Climate Change Impact Analysis on Expected Future Water Availability in the Upper Jordan Catchment and the Middle East

2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 1517-1531 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerhard Smiatek ◽  
Harald Kunstmann ◽  
Andreas Heckl
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
High Resolution ◽  
Water Availability ◽  
Impact Analysis ◽  
River Flow ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Mesoscale Model ◽  
Global Climate Model ◽  
Full Range ◽  
The Impact

Abstract The impact of climate change on the future water availability of the upper Jordan River (UJR) and its tributaries Dan, Snir, and Hermon located in the eastern Mediterranean is evaluated by a highly resolved distributed approach with the fifth-generation Pennsylvania State University–NCAR Mesoscale Model (MM5) run at 18.6- and 6.2-km resolution offline coupled with the Water Flow and Balance Simulation Model (WaSiM). The MM5 was driven with NCEP reanalysis for 1971–2000 and with Hadley Centre Coupled Model, version 3 (HadCM3), GCM forcings for 1971–2099. Because only one regional–global climate model combination was applied, the results may not give the full range of possible future projections. To describe the Dan spring behavior, the hydrological model was extended by a bypass approach to allow the fast discharge components of the Snir to enter the Dan catchment. Simulation results for the period 1976–2000 reveal that the coupled system was able to reproduce the observed discharge rates in the partially karstic complex terrain to a reasonable extent with the high-resolution 6.2-km meteorological input only. The performed future climate simulations show steadily rising temperatures with 2.2 K above the 1976–2000 mean for the period 2031–60 and 3.5 K for the period 2070–99. Precipitation trends are insignificant until the middle of the century, although a decrease of approximately 12% is simulated. For the end of the century, a reduction in rainfall ranging between 10% and 35% can be expected. Discharge in the UJR is simulated to decrease by 12% until 2060 and by 26% until 2099, both related to the 1976–2000 mean. The discharge decrease is associated with a lower number of high river flow years.

scholarly journals Model cascade from meteorological drivers to river flood hazard: flood-cascade v1.0

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (8) ◽  
pp. 4865-4890
Author(s):  
Peter Uhe ◽  
Daniel Mitchell ◽  
Paul D. Bates ◽  
Nans Addor ◽  
Jeff Neal ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
River Flow ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Climate Modeling ◽  
Flood Hazard ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Computational Cost ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Flood Inundation

Abstract. Riverine flood hazard is the consequence of meteorological drivers, primarily precipitation, hydrological processes and the interaction of floodwaters with the floodplain landscape. Modeling this can be particularly challenging because of the multiple steps and differing spatial scales involved in the varying processes. As the climate modeling community increases their focus on the risks associated with climate change, it is important to translate the meteorological drivers into relevant hazard estimates. This is especially important for the climate attribution and climate projection communities. Current climate change assessments of flood risk typically neglect key processes, and instead of explicitly modeling flood inundation, they commonly use precipitation or river flow as proxies for flood hazard. This is due to the complexity and uncertainties of model cascades and the computational cost of flood inundation modeling. Here, we lay out a clear methodology for taking meteorological drivers, e.g., from observations or climate models, through to high-resolution (∼90 m) river flooding (fluvial) hazards. Thus, this framework is designed to be an accessible, computationally efficient tool using freely available data to enable greater uptake of this type of modeling. The meteorological inputs (precipitation and air temperature) are transformed through a series of modeling steps to yield, in turn, surface runoff, river flow, and flood inundation. We explore uncertainties at different modeling steps. The flood inundation estimates can then be related to impacts felt at community and household levels to determine exposure and risks from flood events. The approach uses global data sets and thus can be applied anywhere in the world, but we use the Brahmaputra River in Bangladesh as a case study in order to demonstrate the necessary steps in our hazard framework. This framework is designed to be driven by meteorology from observational data sets or climate model output. In this study, only observations are used to drive the models, so climate changes are not assessed. However, by comparing current and future simulated climates, this framework can also be used to assess impacts of climate change.

scholarly journals Assessing the impact of global warming on worldwide open field tomato cultivation through CSIRO-Mk3·0 global climate model

2016 ◽  
Vol 155 (3) ◽  
pp. 407-420 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. S. SILVA ◽  
L. KUMAR ◽  
F. SHABANI ◽  
M. C. PICANÇO
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Open Field ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Global Climate Model ◽  
Current Model ◽  
Global Climate Models ◽  
The Impact

SUMMARYTomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) is one of the most important vegetable crops globally and an important agricultural sector for generating employment. Open field cultivation of tomatoes exposes the crop to climatic conditions, whereas greenhouse production is protected. Hence, global warming will have a greater impact on open field cultivation of tomatoes rather than the controlled greenhouse environment. Although the scale of potential impacts is uncertain, there are techniques that can be implemented to predict these impacts. Global climate models (GCMs) are useful tools for the analysis of possible impacts on a species. The current study aims to determine the impacts of climate change and the major factors of abiotic stress that limit the open field cultivation of tomatoes in both the present and future, based on predicted global climate change using CLIMatic indEX and the A2 emissions scenario, together with the GCM Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)-Mk3·0 (CS), for the years 2050 and 2100. The results indicate that large areas that currently have an optimum climate will become climatically marginal or unsuitable for open field cultivation of tomatoes due to progressively increasing heat and dry stress in the future. Conversely, large areas now marginal and unsuitable for open field cultivation of tomatoes will become suitable or optimal due to a decrease in cold stress. The current model may be useful for plant geneticists and horticulturalists who could develop new regional stress-resilient tomato cultivars based on needs related to these modelling projections.

Flood recurrence under climate change: a probabilistic flood risk assessment of critical infrastructure in the Danube basin

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michel Wortmann ◽  
Kai Schröter
Keyword(s):  
Flood Risk ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Critical Infrastructure ◽  
Insurance Industry ◽  
Danube River ◽  
Detailed Model ◽  
Flood Level ◽  
Basin Scale ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Impact

<p>Consistent information on fluvial flood risks in large river basins is typically sparse. This is especially true for the Danube River basin covering up to 14 countries and creating a patchwork of flood risk information across a populous and flood-prone region. As climatic changes have shown to increase flooding in the future, consistent basin-scale assessments prove vital to the insurance industry as well as municipal and infrastructural planning. The Future Danube Model (FDM) was designed to fill this gap complying to both insurance industry and climate science standards. That is, allowing for a reasonably detailed model scale (based on a 25m digital elevation model), stochastic sampling to create a large number of extreme events and flood event footprints (10k years), a thorough calibration and validation as well as the use of an ensemble of climate model output to drive the model under scenario conditions. The model is here used to assess the impact on critical infrastructure across the basin. Results indicate a marked increase in flood risk has already occurred when comparing the current climate period (2006-2035) to the reference period (1970-1999). Further increases are projected under a moderate and a business as usual scenario for the next climate period (2020-2049) and the end of the century (2070-2099). In large parts of the basin, the historical 100-year flood level, often used as a critical protection level for infrastructure, is projected to be equalled or exceeded every 50–10 years, while areas with a 100-year flood risk are projected to increase by 6-19%.</p>

Constraining the model representation of the aerosol life cycle in relation to sources and sinks.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Kim ◽  
Daniel Partridge ◽  
James Haywood
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Global Climate Model ◽  
Evaluation Framework ◽  
Microphysical Properties ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Source And Sink

<p>Global climate model (GCM) ensembles still produce a significant spread of estimates for the future of climate change which hinders our ability to influence policymakers. The range of these estimates can only partly be explained by structural differences and varying choice of parameterisation schemes between GCMs. GCM representation of cloud and aerosol processes, more specifically aerosol microphysical properties, remain a key source of uncertainty contributing to the wide spread of climate change estimates. The radiative effect of aerosol is directly linked to the microphysical properties and these are in turn controlled by aerosol source and sink processes during transport as well as meteorological conditions.</p><p>A Lagrangian, trajectory-based GCM evaluation framework, using spatially and temporally collocated aerosol diagnostics, has been applied to over a dozen GCMs via the AeroCom initiative. This framework is designed to isolate the source and sink processes that occur during the aerosol life cycle in order to improve the understanding of the impact of these processes on the simulated aerosol burden. Measurement station observations linked to reanalysis trajectories are then used to evaluate each GCM with respect to a quasi-observational standard to assess GCM skill. The AeroCom trajectory experiment specifies strict guidelines for modelling groups; all simulations have wind fields nudged to ERA-Interim reanalysis and all simulations use emissions from the same inventories. This ensures that the discrepancies between GCM parameterisations are emphasised and differences due to large scale transport patterns, emissions and other external factors are minimised.</p><p>Preliminary results from the AeroCom trajectory experiment will be presented and discussed, some of which are summarised now. A comparison of GCM aerosol particle number size distributions against observations made by measurement stations in different environments will be shown, highlighting the difficulties that GCMs have at reproducing observed aerosol concentrations across all size ranges in pristine environments. The impact of precipitation during transport on aerosol microphysical properties in each GCM will be shown and the implications this has on resulting aerosol forcing estimates will be discussed. Results demonstrating the trajectory collocation framework will highlight its ability to give more accurate estimates of the key aerosol sources in GCMs and the importance of these sources in influencing modelled aerosol-cloud effects. In summary, it will be shown that this analysis approach enables us to better understand the drivers behind inter-model and model-observation discrepancies.</p>

scholarly journals Evaluation of drought indices at interannual to climate change timescales: a case study over the Amazon and Mississippi river basins

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 13231-13249 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Joetzjer ◽  
H. Douville ◽  
C. Delire ◽  
P. Ciais ◽  
B. Decharme ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Balance ◽  
River Discharge ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Potential Evapotranspiration ◽  
Global Climate Model ◽  
Meteorological Drought ◽  
River Basins ◽  
Drought Indices ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. The present study compares three meteorological drought indices (scPDSI, SPI and SPEI respectively) and their ability to account for the variations of annual mean river discharge on both interannual and climate change timescales. The Standardized Runoff Index (SRI) is used as a proxy of river discharge. The Mississippi and Amazon river basins provide two contrasted testbeds for this analysis. All meteorological drought indices are derived from monthly 2-meter temperature and/or precipitation, using either gridded observations or outputs of a global climate model. The SPI based solely on precipitation is not outperformed by the SPEI (accounting for potential evapotranspiration) and the scPDSI (based on a simplified water balance) at detecting interannual SRI variations. Under increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases, the simulated response of the areal fraction in drought is highly index-dependent, suggesting that more physical water balance models are needed to account for the impact of global warming on hydrological droughts.

scholarly journals Assessment of Impacts of Climate Change and Adaptation Measures for Maize Production in East Sikkim, India

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-27
Author(s):  
Proloy Deb ◽  
S. Babel
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Global Climate Model ◽  
Maize Yield ◽  
Future Climate ◽  
Yield Response ◽  
Climate Data ◽  
North East ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change

An investigation was carried out to assess the impacts of climate change on rainfed maize yield using a yield response to water stress model (AquaCrop) and to identify suitable adaptation options to minimize the negative impacts on maize yield in East Sikkim, North East India. Crop management and yield data was collected from the field experimental plots for calibration and validation of the model for the study area. The future climate data was developed for two IPCC emission scenarios A2 and B2 based on the global climate model HadCM3 with downscaling of climate to finer spatial resolution using the statistical downscaling model, SDSM. The impact study revealed that there is an expected reduction in maize yield of 12.8, 28.3 and 33.9% for the A2 scenario and 7.5, 19.9 and 29.9% for the B2 scenario during 2012-40, 2041-70 and 2071-99 respectively compared to the average yield simulated during the period of 1961-1990 with observed climate data. The maize yield of same variety under future climate can be maintained or improved from current level by changing planting dates, providing supplement irrigation and managing optimum nutrient.Journal of Hydrology and Meteorology, Vol. 9(1) 2015, p.15-27

Eco-efficient flight trajectories – Using a Lagrangian approach in EMAC to investigate contrail formation in the mid latitudes 

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Peter ◽  
Sigrun Matthes ◽  
Christine Frömming ◽  
Volker Grewe
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Co2 Emissions ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Global Climate Model ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Variation ◽  
Climate Effects ◽  
Aircraft Trajectories ◽  
The Impact

<p>Air transport has for a long time been linked to environmental issues like pollution, noise and climate change. While CO2 emissions are the main focus in public discussions, non-CO2 emissions of aviation may have a similar impact on the climate as aviation's carbon dioxide, e.g. contrail cirrus, nitrogen oxides or aviation induced cloudiness. While the effects of CO2 on climate are independent of location and situation during release, non-CO2 effects such as contrail formation vary depending on meteorological background. Previous studies investigated the influence of different weather situations on aviation’s climate change contribution, identifying climate sensitive regions and generating data products which enable air traffic management (ATM) to plan for climate optimized trajectories.</p> <p>The research presented here focuses on the further development of methods to determine the sensitivity of the atmosphere to aviation emissions with respect to climate effects in order to determine climate optimized aircraft trajectories. While previous studies focused on characterizing the North Atlantic Flight Corridor region, this study aims to extend the geographic scope by performing Lagrangian simulations in a global climate model EMAC for the northern hemispheric extratropical regions and tropical latitudes. This study addresses how realistically the physical conditions and processes for contrail formation and life cycle are represented in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere by comparing them to airborne observations (HALO measurement campaign, CARIBIC/IAGOS scheduled flight measurements), examining key variables such as temperature or humidity. Direct comparison of model data with observations using clusters of data provides insight into the extent to which systematic biases exist that are relevant to the climate effects of contrails. We perform this comparison for different vertical resolutions to assess which vertical resolution in the EMAC model is well suited for studying contrail formation. Together with this model evaluation using aircraft measurements, the overall concept for studying the life cycle of contrails in the modular global climate model EMAC is introduced. Hereby, the concept for the development of a MET service that can be provided to ATM to evaluate contrail formation and its impact on the climate along planned aircraft trajectories is presented.</p> <p>Within the ClimOP collaborative project, we can investigate which physical processes determine the effects of contrails on climate and study their spatial and temporal variation. In addition, these climate change functions enable case studies that assess the impact of contrails on climate along trajectories and use alternative trajectories that avoid these regions of the atmosphere that have the potential to form contrails with a large radiative effect.</p> <p>This study is part of the ClimOP project and has received funding from European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement N° 875503 (ClimOP) and from the SESAR Joint Undertaking under grant agreements No 699395 (FlyATM4E). </p>

scholarly journals Modelling the impact of superimposed ice on the mass balance of an Arctic glacier under scenarios of future climate change

2005 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 277-283 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Wright ◽  
Jemma Wadham ◽  
Martin Siegert ◽  
Adrian Luckman ◽  
Jack Kohler
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Mass Balance ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Global Climate Model ◽  
Balance Model ◽  
Explicit Calculation ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Glacier Mass Balance ◽  
Positive Contribution ◽  
The Impact

AbstractA surface-energy/mass-balance model with an explicit calculation of meltwater refreezing and superimposed ice formation is applied to midre Lovénbreen, Spitsbergen, Svalbard. The model is run with meteorological measurements to represent the present climate, and run with scenarios taken from global climate model predictions based on the IS92a emissions scenario to represent future climates. Model results indicate that superimposed ice accounts for on average 37% of the total net accumulation under present conditions. The model is found to be highly sensitive to changes in the mean annual air temperature and much less sensitive to changes in the total annual precipitation. A 0.5˚C decade–1 temperature increase is predicted to cause an average mass-balance change of –0.43 ma–1, while a 2% decade–1 increase in precipitation will result in only a +0.02 ma–1 change in mass balance. An increase in temperature results in a significant decrease in the size of the accumulation area at midre Lovénbreen and hence a similar decrease in the net volume of superimposed ice. The model predicts, however, that the relative importance of superimposed ice will increase to account for >50% of the total accumulation by 2050. The results show that the refreezing of meltwater and in particular the formation of superimposed ice make an important positive contribution to the mass balance of midre Lovénbreen under present conditions and will play a vital future role in slowing down the response of glacier mass balance to climate change.

scholarly journals The large-scale impact of climate change to Mississippi flood hazard in New Orleans

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. L. A. Driessen ◽  
M. van Ledden
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Sea Level Rise ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Mississippi River ◽  
Flood Hazard ◽  
Water Levels ◽  
Impact Of Climate Change ◽  
High Flows ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. The objective of this paper was to describe the impact of climate change on the Mississippi River flood hazard in the New Orleans area. This city has a unique flood risk management challenge, heavily influenced by climate change, since it faces flood hazards from multiple geographical locations (e.g. Lake Pontchartrain and Mississippi River) and multiple sources (hurricane, river, rainfall). Also the low elevation and significant subsidence rate of the Greater New Orleans area poses a high risk and challenges the water management of this urban area. Its vulnerability to flooding became dramatically apparent during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 with huge economic losses and a large number of casualties. A SOBEK Rural 1DFLOW model was set up to simulate the general hydrodynamics. This model included the two important spillways that are operated during high flow conditions. A weighted multi-criteria calibration procedure was performed to calibrate the model for high flows. Validation for floods in 2011 indicated a reasonable performance for high flows and clearly demonstrated the influence of the spillways. 32 different scenarios were defined which included the relatively large sea level rise and the changing discharge regime that is expected due to climate change. The impact of these scenarios on the water levels near New Orleans were analysed by the hydrodynamic model. Results showed that during high flows New Orleans will not be affected by varying discharge regimes, since the presence of the spillways ensures a constant discharge through the city. In contrary, sea level rise is expected to push water levels upwards. The effect of sea level rise will be noticeable even more than 470 km upstream. Climate change impacts necessitate a more frequent use of the spillways and opening strategies that are based on stages.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document