{"id":11037,"date":"2025-04-22T22:23:59","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T19:23:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/?p=11037"},"modified":"2025-04-22T22:23:59","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T19:23:59","slug":"modeling-climate-driven-hazards-with-a-new-tool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/news\/modeling-climate-driven-hazards-with-a-new-tool","title":{"rendered":"Modeling climate-driven hazards with a new tool"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tornadoes, wildfires, tropical cyclones and sea level rise are all on the list of dangers made worse by climate change. Answering questions about how severe these disasters will be, how soon and how frequently they will occur, and what areas are likely to sustain the most harm is of vital importance. Responding to this need, Columbia climate scientists at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP) have led the\u00a0U.S. Natural Hazards Climate Change Projections project<\/a>, which can provide officials, relief organizations, city developers and families with the information they need to plan for the worst.<\/p>\n

This initiative brought together several public and academic researchers to develop a novel, interactive dataset to track and predict the occurrence of climate change\u2013fueled extreme events on a county level, through the middle and end of the century. The project builds off of the\u00a0Natural Hazards Index v2.0<\/a>, a present-day look at 14 different hazard types.<\/p>\n

\"Wildfire<\/picture>
Forest fire at Umatilla National Forest. Credit: Brendan O\u2019Reilly\/U.S. Forest Service-Pacific Northwest Region via\u00a0Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The team identified significant future climate<\/a> change\u2013driven hazards, including an escalating wildfire threat to San Diego and Washington State\u2019s Yakima County. As high as the risk is now, the models point to it getting worse. The Dakotas, which currently do not have a high incidence of wildfires, should prepare for an increase. Louisiana will see fewer wildfires in the future, but underlying data suggests that\u2019s because there\u2019s going to be more precipitation, and more precipitation could mean more flooding.<\/p>\n

These are just a few of the predictions modeled as part of the project.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe show what the baseline hazard is and then what the percent change is going to be in the mid- and end-century,\u201d said\u00a0Jonathan Sury<\/a>, senior staff associate at NCDP and the lead researcher on the project. \u201cHow much worse are things going to get? For example, when you look at the raw numbers for wildfire, it\u2019s not much, but when you interpret the data, even if you go from 0.2% to 0.4%, you\u2019re doubling the risk. And if you don\u2019t have enough firefighting resources such as fire trucks, or if you don\u2019t have enough homes that have been prepared and adapted to the potential for wildfire, the outcomes could be catastrophic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Map<\/picture>
Mid-century (2047) wildfire annual burn probability. Credit: U.S. Natural Hazards Climate Change<\/a> Projections<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

These new datasets are comprised of maps, graphs and an introductory narrative that helps the user learn about the hazard, how the hazard\u2019s profile may change under the influence of climate change and additional information<\/a> about the dataset itself, which may be of particular interest to academics and researchers.<\/p>\n

The project identifies another notable and alarming red flag: an increased tornado risk for the East Coast.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew trends were moving eastward for tornadoes, and now we can actually show the big shift and the increase in the number of potential<\/a> tornadoes from Tornado Alley over out east and then up on the Eastern Seaboard,\u201d said Sury. \u201cOur previous tornado dataset was just looking at historical data. Our extreme heat layer was looking at trends over the past 40 years. This is looking at how things are changing under different climate conditions and different time<\/a> periods between now and the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile the challenges of climate change and disasters may seem overwhelming, it is also important to note that we have more knowledge at our disposal than ever before,\u201d said\u00a0Jeffrey Schlegelmilch<\/a>, NCDP director and professor of professional practice of climate at the Columbia Climate School. \u201cBy working across sectors and engaging partnerships like this, we can provide data that is empirically rigorous\u00a0and immediately relevant to stakeholders outside of academia. This helps to foster better decisions, better investments and better resilience<\/a> for our communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recognizing the risk and value of predictive data, the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Administration was in the process of putting together a tool to track how future climate change<\/a> factors could intensify natural disasters. The Trump administration has put those plans<\/a> on indefinite hold while also deleting many governmental agency tracking websites.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in a time where the hazards we face are increasingly impacting the lives and livelihoods<\/a> of our communities,\u201d said Schlegelmilch. \u201cAt the same time, we are seeing datasets being taken down, right when we need them most.\u201d<\/p>\n

The disappearing dataset policy might pose challenges. However, according to Sury, the new predictive map aggregates existing datasets, incorporates the best, most currently available data, and leverages the most advanced technological methods to produce novel research that predicts\u2014 over time\u2014the way climate change<\/a> will intensify and escalate the risk of the four types of hazards: tornadoes, tropical cyclones, wildfires and sea level rise.<\/p>\n

Traditionally, extreme event<\/a> preparedness science relied on historical event data to anticipate and model future trends. This project shifts the paradigm.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause the very climate these hazards are emerging from is changing<\/a>, we can\u2019t rely solely on past experiences and historical data to guide our understanding of risk, and how we make investments to help reduce those risks,\u201d said Schlegelmilch.<\/p>\n

The new map and underlying\u00a0dataset<\/a>, which were released on April 21, is the third hazards data product based off a beta version of the Natural Hazards Index, first released in 2016. This tool was developed to supplement the\u00a0Preparedness Wizard<\/a>, a clickable resource for building household emergency plans. In 2023, Sury and his team developed the U.S. Natural Hazards Index v2.0 to update and better visualize natural hazard data<\/a> for 14 hazard types in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n

In this latest dataset, the research team built on deep existing research and analysis, tracking the trajectory of sea level rise<\/a> and deriving the tropical cyclone data from a combination of existing, ongoing and new research. Here, too, predictions show escalating risk.<\/p>\n

\u201cTropical cyclones cause enormous damage in the United States and risks are expected to grow with climate<\/a> change,\u201d said Simona Meiler, postdoctoral researcher in weather and climate risk science at Stanford University, who co-developed and supplied the modeled dataset to NCDP.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe climate system\u2019s response to anthropogenic forcing is not homogeneous and remains uncertain; changes in near-future hurricanes may vary geographically,\u201d said\u00a0Chia-Ying Lee<\/a>, associate research professor at Columbia\u2019s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. \u201cWe need to look at changes<\/a> in regional risk, which this map provides. In this dataset, it is assumed that storm frequency increases with global<\/a> warming.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBy making this data available in an accessible format, we aim to support not just climate scientists and risk modelers, but also urban planners, emergency managers and researchers<\/a> in other fields, like economics or human mobility. The goal is to make future tropical cyclone risks more<\/a> visible and actionable, particularly in the most vulnerable regions,\u201d said Meiler.<\/p>\n

As daunting as these predictions are, researchers underscore that knowledge is society\u2019s best possible defense. The team has made the data open-source and available to everyone to position the research<\/a> to do the most good.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese will be most helpful for anyone with a long-term interest in the future,\u201d said Schlegelmilch. \u201cFor individuals, it may involve\u00a0looking at the kinds of emergencies\u00a0that you may face, which\u00a0can impact investments<\/a> you make to your home, or what kinds of hazards you plan for in your own personal preparedness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cInvestors will want to understand exposure to hazards, whether for physical assets or even economies exposed to increasing hazards. This in turn can help to incentivize resilience investments to offset these risks. Emergency managers and city planners can use these to help look into how hazards may change<\/a>, which will impact disaster plans specifically and development plans more broadly,\u201d Schlegelmilch said, adding that \u201cthese are just a few of the many, many potential use cases across the country.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tornadoes, wildfires, tropical cyclones and sea level rise are all on the list of dangers made worse by climate change. Answering questions about how severe these disasters will be, how soon and how frequently they will occur, and what areas are likely to sustain the most harm is of vital importance. Responding to this need, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11038,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11037"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11042,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11037\/revisions\/11042"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}