The hazard components of representative key risks. The physical climate perspective

• Published in: Climate Risk Management
• Main Authors: Tebaldi, Claudia, Aðalgeirsdóttir, Guðfinna, Drijfhout, Sybren, Dunne, John, Edwards, Tamsin L., Fischer, Erich, Fyfe, John C., Jones, Richard G., Kopp, Robert E., Koven, Charles, Krinner, Gerhard, Otto, Friederike, Ruane, Alex C., Seneviratne, Sonia I., Sillmann, Jana, Szopa, Sophie, Zanis, Prodromos
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; permafrost
• Online Access: http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1984027; https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1984027; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crm.2023.100516

The framework of Representative Key Risks (RKRs) has been adopted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group II in order to categorize, assess and communicate a wide range of regional and sectoral key risks, expected to become severe as a consequence of the potentially detrimental convergence of changing climate conditions, exposure and vulnerability of human and natural systems, and responses through (mal)adaptation measures. Other papers in this special issue treat each of eight RKRs by holistically assessing their current status and future evolution as a result of this convergence. However, their treatment cannot always organize such assessment according to a systematic gradation of climatic changes, often times having to extrapolate the big-picture evolution of risk from either qualitative effects of “low” medium” and “high” warming, or limited/focused analysis of the consequences of particular mitigation choices (e.g., benefits of limiting warming to 1.5 or 2C). In this study we offer as systematic a representation as possible – given current literature and assessments – of the future evolution of the hazard components of RKRs. We draw on the assessment of changes in climatic impact-drivers relevant to RKRs described in the 6th Assessment Report by Working Group 1 (WGI) supplemented when needed by more recent literature. We identify the relevant hazards for each RKR, based upon the WGII authors’ assessment, and we report on their current state and expected future changes in magnitude, intensity and/or frequency, linking these changes to Global Warming Levels to the extent possible. For some of these quantities - like regional trends in oceanic and atmospheric temperature and precipitation, some heat and precipitation extremes, permafrost thaw and Northern Hemisphere snow cover - a strong and quantitative relationship with global average temperature change has been assessed. For others - like frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones and extra-tropical storms, and fire weather - the ...