Future climate risk from compound events

Jakob Zscheischler; Seth Westra; Bart J.J.M. Van Den Hurk; Sonia I. Seneviratne; Philip J. Ward; Andy Pitman; Amir Aghakouchak; David N. Bresch; Michael Leonard; Thomas Wahl; Xuebin Zhang

doi:10.1038/s41558-018-0156-3

Future climate risk from compound events

Jakob Zscheischler^*
, Seth Westra
, Bart J.J.M. Van Den Hurk
, Sonia I. Seneviratne
, Philip J. Ward
, Andy Pitman
, Amir Aghakouchak
, David N. Bresch
, Michael Leonard
, Thomas Wahl
, Xuebin Zhang

^*Corresponding author for this work

Water and Climate Risk

Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

6958 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Floods, wildfires, heatwaves and droughts often result from a combination of interacting physical processes across multiple spatial and temporal scales. The combination of processes (climate drivers and hazards) leading to a significant impact is referred to as a 'compound event'. Traditional risk assessment methods typically only consider one driver and/or hazard at a time, potentially leading to underestimation of risk, as the processes that cause extreme events often interact and are spatially and/or temporally dependent. Here we show how a better understanding of compound events may improve projections of potential high-impact events, and can provide a bridge between climate scientists, engineers, social scientists, impact modellers and decision-makers, who need to work closely together to understand these complex events.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	469-477
Number of pages	9
Journal	Nature Climate Change
Volume	8
Issue number	6
Early online date	14 May 2018
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0156-3
Publication status	Published - Jun 2018

Funding

Many ideas laid out in this paper emerged from a workshop \u2018Addressing the challenge of compound events\u2019 held in April 2017 at ETH Zurich. This workshop has also led to the recently approved EU COST Action DAMOCLES (CA17109). DAMOCLES will coordinate research activities laid out in this Perspective. We thank E. Fischer for presenting the initial idea that has led to Fig. 2 during the workshop. The workshop would not have been possible without generous funding from the World Climate Research Programme, the Australian Research Council Center of Excellence for Climate System Science (ARCCSS), ETH Zurich, the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (VIDI grant no. 016.161.324). The funding was primarily used to invite promising Early Career Scientists working on compound events to attend the workshop. S.W. was supported by ARC Discovery project DP150100411. B.J.J.M.v.d.H. acknowledges funding from the IMPREX research project supported by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 Framework programme with grant no. 641811. S.I.S. acknowledges the European Research Council (ERC) DROUGHT-HEAT project funded by the European Community\u2019s Seventh Framework Programme with grant no. 617518. This work contributes to the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) Grand Challenge on Extremes.

Funders	Funder number
Australian Research Council Center of Excellence for Climate System Science
IMPREX
Association pour la Recherche sur le Cancer	DP150100411
Horizon 2020 Framework Programme	641811
European Commission
European Research Council
Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich	016.161.324
Seventh Framework Programme	617518

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 13 Climate Action

Access to Document

10.1038/s41558-018-0156-3

Future climate risk from compound eventsFinal published version, 1.81 MBLicence: Article 25fa Dutch Copyright Act

Persistent URL (handle)

Persistent link

Cite this

@article{846e7c3148f143e98ea1d29fa3e98cfe,

title = "Future climate risk from compound events",

abstract = "Floods, wildfires, heatwaves and droughts often result from a combination of interacting physical processes across multiple spatial and temporal scales. The combination of processes (climate drivers and hazards) leading to a significant impact is referred to as a 'compound event'. Traditional risk assessment methods typically only consider one driver and/or hazard at a time, potentially leading to underestimation of risk, as the processes that cause extreme events often interact and are spatially and/or temporally dependent. Here we show how a better understanding of compound events may improve projections of potential high-impact events, and can provide a bridge between climate scientists, engineers, social scientists, impact modellers and decision-makers, who need to work closely together to understand these complex events.",

author = "Jakob Zscheischler and Seth Westra and \{Van Den Hurk\}, \{Bart J.J.M.\} and Seneviratne, \{Sonia I.\} and Ward, \{Philip J.\} and Andy Pitman and Amir Aghakouchak and Bresch, \{David N.\} and Michael Leonard and Thomas Wahl and Xuebin Zhang",

year = "2018",

month = jun,

doi = "10.1038/s41558-018-0156-3",

language = "English",

volume = "8",

pages = "469--477",

journal = "Nature Climate Change",

issn = "1758-678X",

publisher = "Nature Research",

number = "6",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Future climate risk from compound events

AU - Zscheischler, Jakob

AU - Westra, Seth

AU - Van Den Hurk, Bart J.J.M.

AU - Seneviratne, Sonia I.

AU - Ward, Philip J.

AU - Pitman, Andy

AU - Aghakouchak, Amir

AU - Bresch, David N.

AU - Leonard, Michael

AU - Wahl, Thomas

AU - Zhang, Xuebin

PY - 2018/6

Y1 - 2018/6

N2 - Floods, wildfires, heatwaves and droughts often result from a combination of interacting physical processes across multiple spatial and temporal scales. The combination of processes (climate drivers and hazards) leading to a significant impact is referred to as a 'compound event'. Traditional risk assessment methods typically only consider one driver and/or hazard at a time, potentially leading to underestimation of risk, as the processes that cause extreme events often interact and are spatially and/or temporally dependent. Here we show how a better understanding of compound events may improve projections of potential high-impact events, and can provide a bridge between climate scientists, engineers, social scientists, impact modellers and decision-makers, who need to work closely together to understand these complex events.

AB - Floods, wildfires, heatwaves and droughts often result from a combination of interacting physical processes across multiple spatial and temporal scales. The combination of processes (climate drivers and hazards) leading to a significant impact is referred to as a 'compound event'. Traditional risk assessment methods typically only consider one driver and/or hazard at a time, potentially leading to underestimation of risk, as the processes that cause extreme events often interact and are spatially and/or temporally dependent. Here we show how a better understanding of compound events may improve projections of potential high-impact events, and can provide a bridge between climate scientists, engineers, social scientists, impact modellers and decision-makers, who need to work closely together to understand these complex events.

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85046890068

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85046890068#tab=citedBy

U2 - 10.1038/s41558-018-0156-3

DO - 10.1038/s41558-018-0156-3

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85046890068

SN - 1758-678X

VL - 8

SP - 469

EP - 477

JO - Nature Climate Change

JF - Nature Climate Change

IS - 6

ER -

Future climate risk from compound events

Abstract

Funding

UN SDGs

Access to Document

Persistent URL (handle)

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this