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The original article has been corrected: Legends in Fig. 7 in the article and legends in Figs. 9 and 10 of Supplementary Material 1 as well as contents in columns H and J of Supplementary Material 2 have been amended to the valid results.

High temperatures and heatwaves are associated with significant impacts on human health. With continued global temperature increases, extreme thresholds relevant to health will be exceeded more frequently. This study provides an updated spatial analysis of heat-related mortality for the UK, using the UK Climate Projections (UKCP18) at 1.5 °C–4 °C global warming levels, and embedding population and demographic data from the recently released UK Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (UK-SSPs). Climate change will lead to an increase in heat-related mortality in the future, exacerbated by increased exposure due to increasing population. We find an increase from ∼1400 average annual deaths in the near-past (1990–2019) (95% CI: 1299–1485), to ∼2500 (2304–2794), ∼3700 (3280–4214), ∼8200 (7376–9072) and >18 000 (16 690–20 394) average annual deaths at 1.5 °C, 2 °C, 3 °C and 4 °C respectively (assuming no adaptation). This is considered a high-end estimate due to the assumption of high population growth (UK-SSP5). Older populations are shown to be most vulnerable. A large proportion of heat-related deaths (76% (74%–79%) with 1.5 °C global warming) are attributed to more moderate (1 °C–5 °C) increases above regional temperature thresholds as opposed to extremes. Our results provide a timely update that can serve as a first step to supporting future UK climate policy and risk assessments. Future research considering nonlinearity in the health response to heat exposure is vital.

Staff shortages, reduced budgets, and high acuity of violent psychiatric patients can create challenges in psychiatric intensive care units (PICUs).Staffing of the psychiatric unit was based on patient census rather than evidence-based practices.A pre-/postintervention design was used to examine changes in nursing satisfaction and patient outcomes as measured with the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators (NDNQI) survey results.A psychiatric specific acuity tool was implemented on the PICU of a Veterans Administration hospital.After an initial decrease related to the COVID-19 pandemic, total acuity and the total number of nurses remained relatively stable while the unit census declined. NDNQI survey results improved with the largest being a 52-percentile increase for the quality-of-care summary measure.An acuity tool can help standardize practice, determine fair patient assignments among staff, increase nurse satisfaction, and promote best practices for patient safety.

Drought and water scarcity pose a risk to the economy, particularly sectors where water is a crucial input to the production process. This paper describes integrated simulations of water shortages from a dynamic national water resource systems model with a static economic input-output (I-O) model to assess total drought risk to the economy. To quantify the economic risks of drought and water scarcity, the analysis: (a) integrates a large ensemble of simulated meteorological droughts, propagated through a national hydrological model and water resource systems model to simulate water availability from reservoirs and groundwater; (b) assesses implications of restrictions on water availability for multiple water user categories, representing natural and human contributions to water scarcity; (c) investigates how water shortages propagate into economy-wide direct and indirect impacts. The study focuses on England and Wales where the water supply system is considered under strain, with growing recognition of the economic risk of prolonged and widespread shortages. The direct Expected Annual Loss (EAL) to water users, averaged over an ensemble equivalent to 2800 years of synthetic daily weather, is estimated to be £11.7 million in the 2011 base-year. Accounting for indirect economic losses results in a total EAL of £30.2 million in 2011. The most severe event simulated results in a total loss of £1.4 billion in 2011, equivalent to 0.11% of GVA. The analysis provides a framework to assess what the economically efficient level of system reliability should be, and for deciding upon appropriate water management regulations and strategic investments.

Sea-levels will rise, even with stringent climate change mitigation. Mitigation will slow the rate of rise. There is limited knowledge on how the costs of coastal protection vary with alternative global warming levels of 1.5°C to 4.0°C. Analysing six sea-level rise scenarios (0.74m to 1.09m, 50th percentile) across these warming levels, and five Shared Socioeconomic Pathways, this paper quantifies the economic costs of flooding and protection due to sea-level rise using the Dynamic Interactive Vulnerability Assessment (DIVA) modelling framework. Results are presented for World Bank income groups and five selected countries from the present to 2100. Annual sea flood damage costs without additional adaptation are more influenced by socio-economic development than sea-level rise, indicating there are opportunities to control risk with development choices. In contrast, annual sea dike investment costs are more dependent on the magnitude of sea-level rise. In terms of total costs with adaptation, upper middle, low middle and low income groups are projected to have higher relative costs as a proportion of GDP compared with high income groups. If low income countries protected now, flood costs could be reduced after 2050 and beyond. However, without further adaptation, their coasts will experience growing risks and costs leaving them increasingly reliant on emergency response measures. adaptation. Without mitigation or adaptation, greater inequalities in damage costs between income groups could result. At country level, annual sea flood damage costs without additional adaptation are projected to rapidly increase with approximately 0.2m of sea-level rise, leaving limited time to plan and adapt. SB, PG, KJ, RJ and RW were funded by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) under contract UK SBS CR18083. ASA, SB, SJ, DL, RN, RT and AV were funded by the European Union’s Seventh Programme for Research, Technological Development and Demonstration under grant agreement No. 603396 (RISES-AM project).

Floods are among the most frequent and costliest natural hazards. Fluvial flood losses are expected to increase in the future, driven by population and economic growth in flood-prone areas, and exacerbated in many regions by effects of climate change on the hydrological cycle. Yet, studies assessing direct and indirect economic impacts of fluvial flooding in combination with climate change and socio-economic projections at a country level are rare. This study presents an integrated flood risk analysis framework to calculate total (direct and indirect) economic damages, with and without socio-economic development, under a range of warming levels from < 1.5 to 4 °C in Brazil, China, India, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Ghana. Direct damages are estimated by linking spatially explicit daily flood hazard data from the Catchment-based Macro-scale Floodplain (CaMa-Flood) model with country- and sector-specific depth-damage functions. These values input into an economic Input-Output model for the estimation of indirect losses. The study highlights that total fluvial flood losses are largest in China and India when expressed in absolute terms. When expressed as a share of national GDP, Egypt faces the largest total losses under both the climate change and climate change plus socio-economic development experiments. The magnitude of indirect losses also increased significantly when socio-economic development was modelled. The study highlights the importance of including socio-economic development when estimating direct and indirect flood losses, as well as the role of recovery dynamics, essential to provide a more comprehensive picture of potential losses that will be important for decision makers.

The potential impact of climate change on agriculture has been one of the most discussed topics in the literature on climate change. Although the possible impacts of climate change on crop yields have been widely studied, there remains little quantitative understanding of the heterogeneous economic responses to climate-induced crop yield changes in different economies, particularly at higher levels of warming. This study assesses the economic impacts of eight scenarios of warming, from 1.5 to 4 °C, on rice and wheat yields in China, India, Brazil, Egypt, Ghana and Ethiopia. The role of both natural and social factors in crop production is considered by coupling a statistical crop model (ClimaCrop) and a global economic model (GTAP). Changes in economic outputs, consumer and producer prices and national economic welfare are presented. The study shows marginal benefits of crop yield changes on GDP and welfare in China up to 3.5 and 3.0 °C, respectively. This is due to projected increases in rice yields which lower domestic consumer rice prices. Although at higher warming levels these trends begin to reverse. The other countries are negatively impacted due to declining crop yields, with increasing consumer prices of domestic and imported rice and wheat. GDP and welfare declines, with more severe reductions associated with the higher warming levels, particularly in India and Ethiopia. The method is beneficial as the economic outputs reflect a more in-depth picture of the response of global markets and ultimately regional consequences of agricultural impacts that will be of importance to decision makers.

Flooding in urban areas during heavy rainfall, often characterized by short duration and high-intensity events, is known as "surface water flooding." Analyzing surface water flood risk is complex as it requires understanding of biophysical and human factors, such as the localized scale and nature of heavy precipitation events, characteristics of the urban area affected (including detailed topography and drainage networks), and the spatial distribution of economic and social vulnerability. Climate change is recognized as having the potential to enhance the intensity and frequency of heavy rainfall events. This study develops a methodology to link high spatial resolution probabilistic projections of hourly precipitation with detailed surface water flood depth maps and characterization of urban vulnerability to estimate surface water flood risk. It incorporates probabilistic information on the range of uncertainties in future precipitation in a changing climate. The method is applied to a case study of Greater London and highlights that both the frequency and spatial extent of surface water flood events are set to increase under future climate change. The expected annual damage from surface water flooding is estimated to be to be £171 million, £343 million, and £390 million/year under the baseline, 2030 high, and 2050 high climate change scenarios, respectively.

Multisectoral partnerships are increasingly cited as a mechanism to deliver and improve disaster risk management. Yet, partnerships are not a panacea and more research is required to understand the role that they can play in disaster risk management and particularly disaster risk reduction. This paper investigates how partnerships can incentivise flood risk reduction by focusing on the UK public-private partnership on flood insurance. Developing the right flood insurance arrangements to incentivise flood risk reduction and adaptation to climate change is a key challenge. In the face of rising flood risks due to climate change and socio-economic development insurance partnerships can no longer afford to focus only on the risk transfer function. However, while expectations of the insurance industry have traditionally been high when it comes to flood risk management, the insurance industry alone will not provide the solution to the challenge of rising risks. The case of flood insurance in the UK illustrates this: even national government and industry together cannot fully address these risks and other actors need to be involved to create strong incentives for risk reduction. Using an agent-based model focused on surface water flood risk in London we analyse how other partners could strengthen the insurance partnership by reducing flood risk and thus helping to maintain affordable insurance premiums. Our findings are relevant for wider discussions on the potential of insurance schemes to incentivise flood risk management and climate adaptation in the UK and also internationally.

Climate change and increasing urbanization are projected to result in an increase in surface water flooding and consequential damages in the future. In this paper, we present insights from a novel Agent Based Model (ABM), applied to a London case study of surface water flood risk, designed to assess the interplay between different adaptation options; how risk reduction could be achieved by homeowners and government; and the role of flood insurance and the new flood insurance pool, Flood Re, in the context of climate change. The analysis highlights that while combined investment in property-level flood protection and sustainable urban drainage systems reduce surface water flood risk, the benefits can be outweighed by continued development in high risk areas and the effects of climate change. In our simulations, Flood Re is beneficial in its function to provide affordable insurance, even under climate change. However, the scheme does face increasing financial pressure due to rising surface water flood damages. If the intended transition to risk-based pricing is to take place then a determined and coordinated strategy will be needed to manage flood risk, which utilises insurance incentives, limits new development, and supports resilience measures. Our modelling approach and findings are highly relevant for the ongoing regulatory and political approval process for Flood Re as well as for wider discussions on the potential of insurance schemes to incentivise flood risk management and climate adaptation in the UK and internationally.

Flood risk emerges from the dynamic interaction between natural hazards and human vulnerability. Methods for the quantification of flood risk are well established, but tend to deal with human and economic vulnerability as being static or changing with an exogenously defined trend. In this paper we present an Agent-Based Model (ABM) developed to simulate the dynamical evolution of flood risk and vulnerability, and facilitate an investigation of insurance mechanism in London. The ABM has been developed to firstly allow an analysis of the vulnerability of homeowners to surface water flooding, which is one of the greatest short term climate risks in the UK with estimated annual costs of £1.3bn to £2.2bn. These costs have been estimated to increase by 60-220% over the next 50 years due to climate change and urbanisation. Vulnerability is influenced by homeowner’s decisions to move house and/or install measures to protect their properties from flooding. In particular, the ABM focuses on the role of flood insurance, simulating the current public-private partnership between the government and insurers in the UK, and the forthcoming re-insurance scheme Flood Re, designed as a roadmap to support the future affordability and availability of flood insurance. The ABM includes interaction between homeowners, sellers and buyers, an insurer, a local government and a developer. Detailed GIS and qualitative data of the London borough of Camden are used to represent an area at high risk of surface water flooding. The ABM highlights how future development can exacerbate current levels of surface water flood risk in Camden. Investment in flood protection measures are shown to be beneficial for reducing surface water flood risk. The Flood Re scheme is shown to achieve its aim of securing affordable flood insurance premiums, however, is placed under increasing pressure in the future as the risk of surface water flooding continues to increase.

Hot weather events, ventilation assets, changing passenger demand and service expectations have all caused increased attention on thermal comfort on London’s Tube. This study provides estimates of the future number of days when passengers travelling on sections of the Tube could be subjected to thermal discomfort under future scenarios of climate change, and the potential number of passengers dissatisfied. A risk based methodology is presented, integrating a spatial weather generator modified for urban areas and a thermal comfort model. The study provides an initial assessment of adaptation options by considering the implications of lowering train temperatures by 2 °C and 4 °C to represent saloon cooling. Median results under a 2050 high scenario indicate that all Tube lines assessed could experience near-complete passenger dissatisfaction with the thermal environment in trains in the unlikely event that nothing else were to change. Adaptation aimed at lowering train temperatures has the potential to provide tangible improvements in thermal comfort. However, this was not projected to be sufficient to maintain comfortable thermal conditions for many of the lines in the 2050s under high emission scenarios, requiring a combination of other infrastructure cooling measures to be implemented in parallel.

The study presents a methodology to characterise short- or long-term drought events, designed to aid understanding of how climate change may affect future risk. An indicator of drought magnitude, combining parameters of duration, spatial extent and intensity, is presented based on the Standardised Precipitation Index (SPI). The SPI is applied to observed (1955–2003) and projected (2003–2050) precipitation data from the Community Integrated Assessment System (CIAS). Potential consequences of climate change on drought regimes in Australia, Brazil, China, Ethiopia, India, Spain, Portugal and the USA are quantified. Uncertainty is assessed by emulating a range of global circulation models to project climate change. Further uncertainty is addressed through the use of a high-emission scenario and a low stabilisation scenario representing a stringent mitigation policy. Climate change was shown to have a larger effect on the duration and magnitude of long-term droughts, and Australia, Brazil, Spain, Portugal and the USA were highlighted as being particularly vulnerable to multi-year drought events, with the potential for drought magnitude to exceed historical experience. The study highlights the characteristics of drought which may be more sensitive under climate change. For example, on average, short-term droughts in the USA do not become more intense but are projected to increase in duration. Importantly, the stringent mitigation scenario had limited effect on drought regimes in the first half of the twenty-first century, showing that adaptation to drought risk will be vital in these regions.

High temperatures and heatwaves can cause large societal impacts by increasing health risks, mortality rates, and personal discomfort. These impacts are exacerbated in cities because of the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect, and the high and increasing concentrations of people, assets and economic activities. Risks from high temperatures are now widely recognised but motivation and implementation of proportionate policy responses is inhibited by inadequate quantification of the benefits of adaptation options, and associated uncertainties. This study utilises high spatial resolution probabilistic projections of urban temperatures along with projections of demographic change, to provide a probabilistic risk assessment of heat impacts on urban society. The study focuses on Greater London and the surrounding region, assessing mortality risk, thermal discomfort in residential buildings, and adaptation options within an integrated framework. Climate change is projected to increase future heat-related mortality and residential discomfort. However, adjusting the temperature response function by 1–2 °C, to simulate adaptation and acclimatisation, reduced annual heat related mortality by 32–69 % across the scenarios tested, relative to a no adaptation scenario. Similar benefits of adaptation were seen for residential discomfort. The study also highlights additional benefits in terms of reduced mortality and residential discomfort that mitigating the urban heat island, by reducing albedo and anthropogenic heat emissions, could have.

Drought is an economically important hazard for many countries, with the potential to cause large direct and indirect economic losses. Superimposed on this risk is the danger that future anthropogenic climate change poses. The study utilises projected estimates of direct drought losses, for a variety of different climate change scenarios, to assess how input–output analysis could be used to estimate indirect losses. Modifications were made to the adaptive regional input–output model to consider both the severity of individual drought events and the propagation of economic losses over time and applied to a case study of Spain. The study highlights the importance of the distribution of drought severity and direct losses over time when modelling indirect losses, emphasising a need to focus on time steps shorter than a year to model losses more comprehensively. The results suggest that annual drought losses in 2003–2050 could be up to 32 % higher for short-term droughts if indirect economic losses were considered and 57 % higher for longer-term droughts. Indirect losses were shown to increase nonlinearly over time and as emission scenarios became more severe. This suggests that the benefits of stringent mitigation policies in terms of avoided indirect losses may be more substantial than for direct losses in the second half of the twenty-first century. Whilst the estimates presented here are considered illustrative, the study highlights the importance of considering indirect economic losses for providing more comprehensive economic estimates of drought loss under future climate change and for assessing economic benefits of future mitigation and adaptation strategies.

This paper discusses how economic impacts of extreme weather events in the USA could, and are, leading to the creation of an ‘extreme weather public’ whose discourse has the opportunity to break the deadlock currently surrounding issues of State and Federal adaptation strategies. By taking an interdisciplinary perspective and combining literature on the formation of publics, the political and economic impacts of extreme weather, and popular discourse in the US climate debate, this paper demonstrates how extreme weather events can gather politically powerful and influential actors and how those actors might use their status to interact with current forms of climate change discourse. Special emphasis is paid to the ways in which a focus on the economic impacts of weather extremes could avoid many of the current ‘framing traps’ laid by climate ‘sceptics’ and move the debate towards more proactive adaptive action in the USA’ most vulnerable regions.

A variant of the Adaptive Regional Input-Output model (ARIO) has been developed to explore the sensitivity of the London economy to loss of production capacity in sectors affected by climate change related damage. The model is designed for linking to an Event Accounting Matrix (EAM) produced by climate and engineering teams, and then follow this damage through direct and indirect losses in the economy during a recovery process that is either demand-led (in which recovery of production capacity takes place only as demand recovers) or investment-led (where recovery of production capacity can precede demand). Outputs from the model are used to assess the relative vulnerability of London’s economy to production capacity (Capital stock) loss in each of the 42 economic sectors, for purposes of identifying where to most effectively allocate resources to climate change adaptation strategies or to recovery operations when used in conjunction with an EAM. Measures of impact related to GDP loss, recovery time and the ratio of indirect to direct losses are developed for these scenarios. Results show that indirect losses are a significant component of total losses, with a multiplier of between 1.3 and 2 depending on the scale of initial damage.

Flooding in urban areas during heavy rainfall, often characterized by short duration and high-intensity events, is known as "surface water flooding." Analyzing surface water flood risk is complex as it requires understanding of biophysical and human factors, such as the localized scale and nature of heavy precipitation events, characteristics of the urban area affected (including detailed topography and drainage networks), and the spatial distribution of economic and social vulnerability. Climate change is recognized as having the potential to enhance the intensity and frequency of heavy rainfall events. This study develops a methodology to link high spatial resolution probabilistic projections of hourly precipitation with detailed surface water flood depth maps and characterization of urban vulnerability to estimate surface water flood risk. It incorporates probabilistic information on the range of uncertainties in future precipitation in a changing climate. The method is applied to a case study of Greater London and highlights that both the frequency and spatial extent of surface water flood events are set to increase under future climate change. The expected annual damage from surface water flooding is estimated to be to be £171 million, £343 million, and £390 million/year under the baseline, 2030 high, and 2050 high climate change scenarios, respectively.

Flooding is recognised as one of the most common and costliest natural disasters in England. Flooding in urban areas during heavy rainfall is known as ‘surface water flooding’, considered to be the most likely cause of flood events and one of the greatest short-term climate risks for London. In this paper we present results from a novel Agent-Based Model designed to assess the interplay between different adaptation options, different agents, and the role of flood insurance and the flood insurance pool, Flood Re, in the context of climate change. The model illustrates how investment in adaptation options could reduce London’s surface water flood risk, today and in the future. However, benefits can be outweighed by continued development in high risk areas and the effects of climate change. Flood Re is beneficial in its function to provide affordable insurance, even under climate change. However, it offers no additional benefits in terms of overall risk reduction, and will face increasing pressure due to rising surface water flood risk in the future. The modelling approach and findings are highly relevant for reviewing the proposed Flood Re scheme, as well as for wider discussions on the potential of insurance schemes, and broader multi-sectoral partnerships, to incentivise flood risk management in the UK and internationally.

As one of the world's largest and fastest growing industries, tourism's dependence on the natural environment and climate mean that it is extremely vulnerable to, and could be dramatically affected by, climatic variability and change. However, the vulnerability of the tourism industry to climate change is generally poorly understood by stakeholders, and the adoption of appropriate adaptation strategies remains in the early stages. This study investigates the impacts of climate variability and potential climate change, the level of destination vulnerability, and the adoption of adaptation strategies in Torbay, England. Data were obtained from 106 tourism businesses in the area. Results showed that over 60% of tourism businesses in Torbay have already been affected by changing climatic conditions, for the most part increased storm intensity and frequency, and shifts in seasonality. These changes were also perceived as the greatest future threat to businesses. However, businesses often failed to recognize the role that the good environmental performance of their business could play in minimizing the negative impacts of climatic variability and change. The major barriers to implementing any adaptive changes identified by respondents were cost, a lack of government incentives, and lack of knowledge. The provision of additional information regarding the interrelationships between tourism and climate change—to businesses and tourists—was one of the main needs identified by the study. These issues must be addressed if businesses are to change their attitudes and, ultimately, behavior, minimize the negative impacts of climate change, and take best advantage of the potential opportunities offered by this phenomenon.

Drought events and their impacts pose a considerable problem for governments, businesses and individuals. Superimposed on this is the risk of anthropogenic climate change. Climate models are increasingly being used to understand how climate change may affect future drought regimes. However, methodologies to quantify economic costs which could occur under these future scenarios are virtually non-existent. In this study, historic drought events were identified in regional precipitation data using the Standardized Precipitation Index, and their magnitude quantified and linked to reported economic costs. Drought damage functions were created for Australia, Brazil, China, India, Spain/Portugal and the USA. Projections of drought magnitude for 2003–2050 were modeled using the Community Integrated Assessment System, for a range of climate and emission scenarios, and future economic costs estimated. Severe and extreme drought events were projected to cause estimated additional losses ranging between 0.04 and 9 percent of national GDP in Australia, the USA and Spain/Portugal under future scenarios of climate change. The combined effect on global GDP from projected long-term drought events in the countries analyzed resulted in additional annual losses of 0.01 to 0.25 percent. This is considered conservative as the analysis is representative of seven countries only; does not incorporate the possibility of successive drought events, or compounding effects on vulnerability from interactions with other extreme events. Furthermore, it excludes indirect economic effects; social and environmental losses; the possibility of increasing vulnerability due to changing socio-economic conditions; and the possibility of irreversible or systemic collapse of economies as the study highlighted that under future climate change drought magnitude may exceed current experience potentially passing thresholds of social and economic resilience. Stringent mitigation had little effect on the increasing impacts of drought in the first half of the 21st century, so in the short-term adaptation in drought "hot spots" will be crucial.

Weather is frequently used in music to frame events and emotions, yet quantitative analyses are rare. From a collated base set of 759 weather-related songs, 419 were analysed based on listings from a karaoke database. This article analyses the 20 weather types described, frequency of occurrence, genre, keys, mimicry, lyrics and songwriters. Vocals were the principal means of communicating weather: sunshine was the most common, followed by rain, with weather depictions linked to the emotions of the song. Bob Dylan, John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote the most weather-related songs, partly following their experiences at the time of writing.

Congratulations to those who squeezed Bob Dylan songs into their papers and those involved in the analysis.1 Medical scientists are not the only Bob Dylan fans with a sense of humour—meteorologists and climate impact scientists have one too. …