ChAnges in the Statistics of EXTremes Events in cliMatE

Project Information

CaseXtreme

Grant agreement ID: 739686

DOI

10.3030/739686

Project closed

EC signature date 3 March 2017

Start date 1 September 2017

End date 31 August 2018

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 125 500,00

EU contribution

€ 125 500,00

Coordinated by

AMIGO SRL
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CaseXtreme (ChAnges in the Statistics of EXTremes Events in cliMatE)

Reporting period: 2017-09-01 to 2018-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

In the future, meteorological extremes (e.g. droughts) are expected to become more frequent because of climate change. Natural disasters deeply impact the economy and the society all over the globe. However, Africa is widely recognized as the continent with the highest vulnerability to weather risks. To mitigate the effects of natural disasters, it is necessary to develop financial tools and infrastructures to help countries to manage the risk of extreme events, and to adapt to climate change. CaseXtreme was aimed at creating a data-driven methodology to identify meteorological extremes in Africa, and to forecast their variability in the future. To this end, a novel methodology has been developed to distinguish systematic changes in the frequency of extremes from the natural fluctuations of the climate system. A payout scheme for an insurance product based on such a method has been defined. Moreover, its financial viability has been assessed over Africa for different scenarios of green-house gasses concentrations through the exploitation of the outputs of several climate models collected during the 5th Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5).

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

September 2017:
Review of the scientific literature with the aim of selecting methods for the detection of changes in the frequency of extreme events. Familiarization with the Extreme Climate Index (developed by AMIGO).

October 2017:
Review of the scientific literature with the aim of selecting methods for the detection of changes in the frequency of extreme events. Identification of the most performing method. Preparation of Deliverable 2.1.
13/10/2018: KICK-OFF meeting

November 2017:
Testing the method selected previously with synthetic series.
27-29/11/2017: DACAPO seminar 1

December 2017:
Downloading the outputs several climate models collected during the 5th Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) for the experiment representing a stationary climate.

January 2018:
Testing the method selected previously with the outputs several climate models collected during CMIP5 for the experiment representing a stationary climate.

February 2018:
Performing sensitivity studies to select the best values for the parameters of the selected method with synthetic series.
13-15/02/2018: DACAPO seminar 2
March 2018:
Performing sensitivity studies to select the best values for the parameters of the selected method with the outputs several climate models collected during CMIP5 for the experiment representing a stationary climate.
Preparation of the dissemination material.
19-21/03/2018: DACAPO seminar 3.

April 2018:
Identification of the final setting for the selected method. Preparation of the Deliverables 3.1 and 3.2.
Presentation of the CaseXtreme project through a poster presentation.
09-13/04/2018: European Geophysics Union Meeting 2018.

May 2018:
Downloading the outputs several climate models collected during CMIP5 for different scenarios of future green-house gasses concentrations.
29-31/05/2018: DACAPO seminar 4.

June 2018:
Stress-testing the payout scheme based on the method identified previously to simulate the disbursement of climate adaptation funds based on the occurrence of changes in the frequency of extreme events. The stress-test is performed on CMIP5 data for the considered scenarios.
06/06/2018: Public Speaking course.

July 2018:
Finalization of the stress-test of the payout scheme. Preparation of Deliverables 4.1 4.2 and 4.3.
02-06/07/2018: Workshop on Theoretical Methods for Geosciences.

August 2018:
Drafting a scientific publication based on the results of CaseXtreme. Preparation of Deliverable 4.1.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Application of the innovative Extreme Climate Index (ECI), developed at AMIGO, for the aim of CaseXtreme;
Formulation of a novel method to detect changes in the frequency of meteorological extremes;
Fine tuning of the method for the specific purpose of the project;
Development of a payout scheme that makes an insurance product based on such a method financially sustainable.

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