The global impact of climate change on extreme events

Policy research working paper 5566:

This paper quantifies the global impact of climate change from several extreme events: thunderstorms, tornadoes, hail storms, heat waves, cold spells, floods, and droughts. It links climate scenarios to the ultimate damage from each event. It takes an integrated assessment approach to valuing extreme events by: (i) describing the theory behind the damage assessment; (ii) describing the Integrated Assessment model in more detail including the assumptions of the analysis and estimated damage functions; (iii) describing the results, including the current and future baseline damages for each event and continent; and (iv) presenting the climate change results. The paper concludes with a summary of findings and research needs.