The climate change is described as the change in mean climate condition. The social and economic costs that result from climatic changes are associated with extreme shift frequency and severity of events. Munich Re, a reinsurance company, has compiled world disasters from 1980 to 2010, whereby 2007 emerged the year with the highest number of disasters. The high number of this disasters are weather and climate related. As per Munich Re, the year 2010 was one of the warmest years on record. The extreme temperatures were associated with global warming.
The uncertainty about future and the tendency of attributing one action to global warming should not hinder measures to manage risks associated with climatic change. The best risk management framework takes care of general uncertainty and uses any learning opportunities to understand the risk. Risk management should be able to establish long-term risk certainty.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Climatic Trends
Recently there is a rising trend of heavy downpour leading to flush flood which is associated with global warming. Also, there is an observed trend of heat, heavy precipitation, and drought. Over the past 50 years, there has been recorded a significant increase in rainfall, due to increased frequency of heavy downpour. Therefore, heat wave becomes more humid, hence increasing heat stress characterized by increased nighttime temperatures.
Climate Change and the Risk of Extreme Weather
Changing climate causes rising global temperatures, an increased amount of water vapor, and change in the atmospheric circulation. High temperatures increase the moisture content hence extreme precipitation events; this leads to expanding sub-tropical deserts. Expansion of sub-tropical desert increases heat transport from tropic to Arctic, therefore, pushing the mild-latitude storm lines.
Understanding Climatic Risk
With reasonable projection for the future, any level of risk can be assessed and prepared for. A risk is a continuous range of possibilities, each with a specific degree likelihood of occurrence. Under new risk profile, the probability of record heat increases drastically. For example, the 2003 European heat represent one of the world events that conform to this new expectation. With this happening it confirm that another event of the same effect can happen. Hence, we should take the necessary measures to prevent the adverse impact on the human being and the environment. According to the researcher, the subsequent heat waves could have a worse effect than that of 2003. Heat wave in Europe is twice as large, because of global warming over the recent decades. There are other weather events which have increased, such as hourly precipitation. Although hourly precipitation has increased over the past decades’ changes in hourly precipitation remain within the expectation.
Attributing Risk and Assessing Vulnerability
Although particular weather events cannot be attributed to climatic change it is possible to associate and project changes in risk of extreme weather. A connection between climatic change and a particular event needs to be established by multiple lines of evidence. The connection is supported by theory, modeling, and observation.
Responding to Rising Risk
To effectively control the increasing risk of climatic change, both adapting to unavoidable climate change and controlling greenhouse gas emission are required to manage the risk of extreme weather conditions. Conversely, some climatic change has already happened, some impacts are unavoidable, and people should adapt to them. Climate science should provide information to help decision maker understand how risk changes so that they can prioritize in their investment and adaptation activities.
