An Introduction to Complex Climate Risks

Extreme climate and weather events can lead to cascading failures that can spread within and across socio-environmental systems and sectors, often disproportionally affecting underserved communities. Climate change is projected to lead to more frequent and more severe extreme weather events amplifying the likelihood of Complex Climate Risks through multivariate, concurrent and sequential climate extremes affecting societal systems (e.g., food, health, supply chains, finance) and critical infrastructure (e.g., water, energy, communication, transportation) in complicated ways that are challenging to anticipate and prepare for. Understanding and mitigating Complex Climate Risks in a changing climate in compliance with climate equity and justice requires joint efforts from a broad range of scientific communities across disciplines and temporal and spatial scales - from local to global extent, synoptic to decadal variability, and hazard characterization to detailed risk and impact assessment. In recognition that univariate risk assessments might fail to acknowledge amplified risks for societies, from inter-related hazards and affected sectors, a complex risk perspective is increasingly required in the context of understanding climate impacts, resilience and adaptation.

This course will provide an introduction to Complex Climate Risks by discussing recent frameworks developed to address them under current and future climate conditions. Several recent real-world eventsin which societal impacts were amplified by compounding climatic drivers and interactions with societal systems, leading to e.g. conflicts and migration, amplified mortality and failure of critical infrastructures are reviewed. Examples include the 2010 heatwave which caused increased mortality and harvest failures and their connection to the Arab Spring uprising a year later, the links of a year long with the Syrian Civil and the mass migration that followed in 2015 and the 2021 February Texas cold-spell that left millions without electricity and water for days under severe cold conditions in particular in poorer neighbourhoods. This course will provide the students with a thorough understanding of Complex Climate Risks, the typology of different compounding hazards and statistical approaches bridging the physical and societal spheres for a more integral climate risk assessment.

Guided by recent literature quantitative and qualitative frameworks that aim at assessing current and future climate risks to turn them into actionable informa