Extreme Weather Congress: Stormy prospects

The 16th Extreme Weather Congress in Hamburg welcomes more participants than ever before. No wonder: as global warming progresses, extreme weather is becoming more and more likely. From Wednesday to Friday, around a thousand experts at the annual conference in Hamburg will focus on how climate change affects extreme weather events such as heat waves, heavy rain and storms.

“Each decade since the 1960s has been significantly warmer than the previous one,” said Tobias Fuchs, board member at the German Weather Service (DWD), to dpa. “It is quite possible that in 30 years we will look back on this year and realize that the summer we currently classify as extreme will be classified as normal despite its record temperature.”

The current world risk report focuses on another topic. The Development Helps Alliance and the Institute for Peacekeeping Law and International Humanitarian Law (IFHV) at the Ruhr University Bochum published the report on Wednesday at the start of the congress. He has been analyzing the disaster risk for 193 countries since 2011. This year the focus is on storms – i.e. thunderstorms, tornadoes, hurricanes and the like. According to the authors, they are the most serious extreme weather event in terms of economic consequences.

Due to climate change, they are also increasing in intensity, bringing more precipitation and suddenly becoming very strong, according to the report. This is particularly due to the fact that the surface of the seas is warming. Warm sea water is the condition for storms, especially tropical cyclones. According to the report, these are increasingly occurring further south and north than before - and therefore always in regions that are not prepared for storms.

Storm surges and heavy rainfall are particularly dangerous. As sea levels rise, protective measures designed for current levels would no longer be sufficient. Coastal cities and island states are particularly at risk.

According to the report, the severity of the consequences of a storm is unevenly distributed: 10 countries, led by the Philippines, bear the majority of the global storm risk. Meanwhile, 123 of the 193 countries examined are hardly affected.

In addition to the environmental conditions, the threat to people depends primarily on the infrastructure and social vulnerability: when warnings arrive, whether houses are built to be storm-proof, whether escape routes are clear, what disaster protection is available - this also determines how dangerous a storm is. Small economies such as island nations would suffer more economic damage from storms relative to their size. Because of their small size, they also have fewer resources and alternative options for protection and reconstruction - the entire country is often affected at once.

"Storms are natural events. They are not catastrophes. Whether people die is decided long before landfall in the building regulations, the warning chains and the social systems," says Katrin Radtke, scientific director of the world risk report at the IFHV at the Ruhr University Bochum.

The authors of the report warn that without government and international support and insurance, storms can quickly turn into a spiral of poverty. For effective protection, early warning systems must be adapted to the people affected. In addition, the systematic, long-term dimension must be taken into account: resilient institutions and economic structures determine how quickly a region can recover.

The report makes it clear that storms are not just a question of physics. Extreme weather events will also be treated as a social issue at the congress in Hamburg. The Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Celeste Saul, sees a need for action by governments. “Together we can translate better predictions into earlier action, stronger resilience and a safer future for all,” she says. "The question is not whether the next extreme weather event will happen. The question is whether we will be prepared for it."

The German Climate Management Conference runs parallel to the congress. Experts, politicians and civil society come together here to develop practical solutions for the effects of climate change in workshops.