Ripple resonance amplifies economic welfare loss from weather extremes

The most complex but potentially most severe impacts of climate change are caused by extreme weather events. In a globally connected economy, damages can cause remote perturbations and cascading consequences—a ripple effect along supply chains. Here we show an economic ripple resonance that amplifie...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental research letters 2021-11, Vol.16 (11), p.114010
Main Authors: Kuhla, Kilian, Willner, Sven Norman, Otto, Christian, Geiger, Tobias, Levermann, Anders
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Amplification
Climate change
climate impacts
Climate models
consecutive disasters
Cyclones
economic ripple resonance
Economic sectors
Economics
Environmental impact
Extreme weather
Heat stress
Heat tolerance
Perturbation
Regional development
repercussion resonance
Resonance
Ripples
Supply chains
supply network
Tropical cyclones
Weather
weather extremes
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Summary:The most complex but potentially most severe impacts of climate change are caused by extreme weather events. In a globally connected economy, damages can cause remote perturbations and cascading consequences—a ripple effect along supply chains. Here we show an economic ripple resonance that amplifies losses when consecutive or overlapping weather extremes and their repercussions interact. This amounts to an average amplification of 21% for climate-induced heat stress, river floods, and tropical cyclones. Modeling the temporal evolution of 1.8 million trade relations between \(\gt\)7000 regional economic sectors, we find that the regional responses to future extremes are strongly heterogeneous also in their resonance behavior. The induced effect on welfare varies between gains due to increased demand in some regions and losses due to demand or supply shortages in others. Within the current global supply network, the ripple resonance effect of extreme weather is strongest in high-income economies—an important effect to consider when evaluating past and future economic climate impacts.
ISSN:1748-9326
1748-9326
DOI:10.1088/1748-9326/ac2932