Vulnerabilities to agricultural production shocks: An extreme, plausible scenario for assessment of risk for the insurance sector

Lunt, Tobias; Jones, Aled; Mulhern, William; LeZaks, David; Jahn, Molly M.

doi:10.1016/j.crm.2016.05.001

Cited by 41 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…Even though many past climate-related natural disasters are best characterized as compound extreme events (Leonard et al, 2014), such events and their future change are relatively understudied (Field, 2012;Zscheischler et al, 2018). Recent work has made some advances in this area, including joint projections of temperature and humidity (Fischer & Knutti, 2013), storm surge associated with tropical cyclones combined with sea level rise to predict extremes of high water (Little et al, 2015), 10.1029/2018EF000989 extreme storm surge and precipitation events (Wahl et al, 2015), the possibility of disasters occurring in multiple bread baskets at once and affecting world food supply (Lunt et al, 2016), and clustered outbreaks of tornadoes (Tippett et al, 2016). In this paper we focus on temporally compound heat wave events, that is, multiple heat extremes occurring in sequence in a particular location with intermittent short breaks.…”

Section: Motivation and Goals Of This Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Temporally Compound Heat Wave Events and Global Warming: An Emerging Hazard

et al. 2019

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The temporal structure of heat waves having substantial human impact varies widely, with many featuring a compound structure of hot days interspersed with cooler breaks. In contrast, many heat wave definitions employed by meteorologists include a continuous threshold-exceedance duration criterion. This study examines the hazard of these diverse sequences of extreme heat in the present, and their change with global warming. We define compound heat waves to include those periods with additional hot days following short breaks in heat wave duration. We apply these definitions to analyze daily temperature data from observations, NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory global climate model simulations of the past and projected climate, and synthetically generated time series. We demonstrate that compound heat waves will constitute a greater proportion of heat wave hazard as the climate warms and suggest an explanation for this phenomenon. This result implies that in order to limit heat-related mortality and morbidity with global warming, there is a need to consider added vulnerability caused by the compounding of heat waves. Plain Language SummaryHeat waves are multiday periods of extremely hot temperatures and among the most deadly natural disasters. Studies show that heat waves will become longer, more numerous, and more intense with global warming. However, these studies do not consider the implications of multiple heat waves occurring in sequence, or "compounding." In this study, we analyze physics-based simulations of Earth's climate and temperature observations to provide the first quantifications of hazard from compound heat waves. We demonstrate that compound events will constitute a greater proportion of heat wave risk with global warming. This has important policy implications, suggesting that vulnerability from prior heat waves will be increasingly important to consider in assessing heat wave risk and that heat wave warning systems that currently primarily consider future-predicted weather should also account for the recent history of weather.

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Section: Motivation and Goals Of This Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Temporally Compound Heat Wave Events and Global Warming: An Emerging Hazard

et al. 2019

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“…Research has started to focus on the impacts of multiple, interconnected adverse weather events on agricultural production and indirect effects on other industries due to supply chain disruptions and indirect losses such as the financial sector (Lunt et al, 2016;Maynard, 2015). However, more research and information about climate risk distributions and the connection of extreme weather events across the world is needed to estimate the likelihood of multiple breadbasket failures (Bailey and Benton, 2015;Schaffnit-Chatterjee et al, 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increasing risks of multiple breadbasket failure under 1.5 and 2 °C global warming

Gaupp

Hall

Mitchell

et al. 2019

Agricultural Systems

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The increasingly interconnected global food system is becoming more vulnerable to production shocks owing to increasing global mean temperatures and more frequent climate extremes. Little is known, however, about the actual risks of multiple breadbasket failure due to extreme weather events. Motivated by the Paris Climate Agreement, this paper quantifies spatial risks to global agriculture in 1.5 and 2°C warmer worlds. This paper focuses on climate risks posed to three major crops-wheat, soybean and maize-in five major global food producing areas. Climate data from the atmosphere-only HadAM3P model as part of the "Half a degree Additional warming, Prognosis and Projected Impacts" (HAPPI) experiment are used to analyse the risks of climatic extreme events. Using the copula methodology, the risks of simultaneous crop failure in multiple breadbaskets are investigated. Projected losses do not scale linearly with global warming increases between 1.5 and 2°C Global Mean Temperature (GMT). In general, whilst the differences in yield at 1.5 versus 2°C are significant they are not as large as the difference between 1.5°C and the historical baseline which corresponds to 0.85°C above pre-industrial GMT. Risks of simultaneous crop failure, however, do increase disproportionately between 1.5 and 2°C, so surpassing the 1.5°C threshold will represent a threat to global food security. For maize, risks of multiple breadbasket failures increase the most, from 6% to 40% at 1.5 to 54% at 2°C warming. In relative terms, the highest simultaneous climate risk increase between the two warming scenarios was found for wheat (40%), followed by maize (35%) and soybean (23%). Looking at the impacts on agricultural production, we show that limiting global warming to 1.5°C would avoid production losses of up to 2 753 million (161 000, 265 000) tonnes maize (wheat, soybean) in the global breadbaskets and would reduce the risk of simultaneous crop failure by 26%, 28% and 19% respectively.

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“…Global insurance company Lloyd's of London released a peer-reviewed, industry approved 2015 study on the impacts of acute disruption to the global food supply [363]. Experts considered how weather-related events can disrupt the food supply, and can be exacerbated by additional political and economic risks in a chain-like reaction.…”

Section: Case Study: Calculating Food Systems Risksmentioning

confidence: 99%

Role of Modelling in International Crop Research: Overview and Some Case Studies

et al. 2018

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Crop modelling has the potential to contribute to global food and nutrition security. This paper briefly examines the history of crop modelling by international crop research centres of the CGIAR (formerly Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research but now known simply as CGIAR), whose primary focus is on less developed countries. Basic principles of crop modelling building up to a Genotype × Environment × Management × Socioeconomic (G × E × M × S) paradigm, are explained. Modelling has contributed to better understanding of crop performance and yield gaps, better prediction of pest and insect outbreaks, and improving the efficiency of crop management including irrigation systems and optimization of planting dates. New developments include, for example, use of remote sensed data and mobile phone technology linked to crop management decision support models, data sharing in the new era of big data, and the use of genomic selection and crop simulation models linked to environmental data to help make crop breeding decisions. Socio-economic applications include foresight analysis of agricultural systems under global change scenarios, and the consequences of potential food system shocks are also described. These approaches are discussed in this paper which also calls for closer collaboration among disciplines in order to better serve the crop research and development communities by providing model based recommendations ranging from policy development at the level of governmental agencies to direct crop management support for resource poor farmers.

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Vulnerabilities to agricultural production shocks: An extreme, plausible scenario for assessment of risk for the insurance sector

Cited by 41 publications

References 69 publications

Temporally Compound Heat Wave Events and Global Warming: An Emerging Hazard

Temporally Compound Heat Wave Events and Global Warming: An Emerging Hazard

Increasing risks of multiple breadbasket failure under 1.5 and 2 °C global warming

Role of Modelling in International Crop Research: Overview and Some Case Studies

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Vulnerabilities to agricultural production shocks: An extreme, plausible scenario for assessment of risk for the insurance sector

Cited by 41 publications

References 69 publications

Temporally Compound Heat Wave Events and Global Warming: An Emerging Hazard

Temporally Compound Heat Wave Events and Global Warming: An Emerging Hazard

Increasing risks of multiple breadbasket failure under 1.5 and 2 °C global warming

Role of Modelling in International Crop Research: Overview and Some Case Studies

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Product

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Increasing risks of multiple breadbasket failure under 1.5 and 2 °C global warming