Objective With anthropogenic warming, extreme events have already increased in magnitude and frequency and are likely to continue to do so in the near future. These extreme events play decisive roles in climate change impacts. Natural and managed systems, such as agriculture and forestry, are more strongly affected by extremes than by a change in average conditions. Classical parameters considered have included temperature, precipitation and wind speed, but here we will concentrate on multi-factorial complex situations, such as drought, and subsequent ecological events, such as pests. Novel methods from finance mathematics and statistics will be transferred for application to natural systems in order to assess risks of extremes in past, present and future conditions. Special emphasis will be given to deriving critical thresholds and prediction for when they will be crossed. Here, analyses of long-term ecoclimatological data from dendrology, phenology, seed quality, as well as both manipulated experiments and simulations are needed to provide information on the effects stemming from multiple stressors and extremes. In contrast, real data, no matter how long-term, cannot model the risk of new threatening combinations of climatological and ecological parameters. Adaptation should therefore focus not only on retrospective but also on new extremes, in other words, should look forward to the future. In particular, low probabilities and high risk scenarios have to be taken into account. Adaptation measures can range from breeding, and selection of suitable species and varieties to management options, such as sanitation and forest protection. Insurance also needs to adapt to changes in climate and ecology and accurate forecasting becomes more critical in the face of unforeseen extremes and calamities. Thus, future risk management must be based on both adaptation and insurance, with new products, such as index insurance, facilitating the handling of customer claims. Fields of science natural sciencesbiological sciencesbotanydendrology Programme(s) FP7-IDEAS-ERC - Specific programme: "Ideas" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013) Topic(s) ERC-SG-LS9 - ERC Starting Grant - Applied life sciences and biotechnology Call for proposal ERC-2011-StG_20101109 See other projects for this call Funding Scheme ERC-SG - ERC Starting Grant Coordinator TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET MUENCHEN Address Arcisstrasse 21 80333 Muenchen Germany See on map Region Bayern Oberbayern München, Kreisfreie Stadt Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Principal investigator Annette Menzel (Prof.) Administrative Contact Ulrike Ronchetti (Ms.) Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window EU contribution € 1 487 000,00 Beneficiaries (1) Sort alphabetically Sort by EU Contribution Expand all Collapse all TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET MUENCHEN Germany EU contribution € 1 487 000,00 Address Arcisstrasse 21 80333 Muenchen See on map Region Bayern Oberbayern München, Kreisfreie Stadt Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Principal investigator Annette Menzel (Prof.) Administrative Contact Ulrike Ronchetti (Ms.) Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window
