April 12, 2024
The human influence on many classes of extreme weather events, including hurricane rainfall, has been made very clear by extreme weather event attribution studies. Research is now turning to quantifying the resulting effects on the impacts of these extreme weather events on real people. Using Hurricane Harvey as a storyline example, we illustrate the causal chain from increased temperatures to increased hurricane precipitation to increased freshwater flooding to increased structural damages. Detailed geographical information about the effect of climate change on the flood leads to an attribution statement about damages and is combined with census data revealing profound disparities across socioeconomic groups. A disproportionate number of flooded homes from the Harvey flood were in low income Hispanic neighborhoods. We also develop a "social inequality index" to quantify similar inequities in the distribution of damages from the flood of remnant Hurricane Ida. These examples are used to motivate how climate scientists can inform negotiations around the UNFCCC Loss and Damage fund established to aid nations that are “particularly vulnerable” to the impacts of climate change.
Dr. Michael Wehner’s current research concerns the behavior of extreme weather events in a changing climate, especially heat waves, intense precipitation, drought and tropical cyclones. Before joining the Berkeley Lab in 2002, Wehner was an analyst at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the Program for Climate Modeling Diagnosis and Intercomparison. He is the author or co-author of over 250 scientific papers and reports. He was a lead author for the 2013 Fifth and 2021 Sixth Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the 2nd,3rd, 4th and 5thUS National Climate Assessments. Dr. Wehner earned his master’s degree and Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his bachelor’s degree in Physics from the University of Delaware. He received the 2022 LBNL Director's Award for Exceptional Scientific Achievement and was named a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher in 2020, 2021 and 2022.