Understanding and modeling compound climate and weather events (DAMOCLES)

Compound weather and climate events refer to the combination of multiple climate drivers that contributes to societal or environmental risk. Many major climate-related disasters are typically a result of a Compound Event. During such events, multiple weather and climate drivers come together and surpass the coping capacity of the underlying systems. For instance, lack of precipitation early in the year combined with an atmospheric blocking event over western Russia in 2010 led to an extraordinary hot and dry summer, which induced widespread wildfires and air pollution, ultimately causing more than 50,000 deaths and destroying 25% of Russian crops. Even though our understanding of climate extremes and associated impacts is continuously improving, events that break the coping capacity of social and environmental systems often surprise us. This is because most current risk estimates underestimate the risks associated with correlated compound drivers.

The COST Action DAMOCLES coordinates research activities within Europe to gain a better understanding of Compound Events. For more information, please visit the official website.