Our Chapter “Dealing with complexity and extreme events using a bottom-up, resource-based vulnerability perspective” By Pielke Sr Et Al 2012 Has Appeared

Our article

Pielke, R. A., Sr., R. Wilby,  D. Niyogi, F. Hossain, K. Dairuku,J. Adegoke, G. Kallos, T. Seastedt, and K. Suding (2012), Dealing with complexity and extreme events using a bottom-up, resource-based vulnerability perspective, in Extreme Events and Natural Hazards: The Complexity Perspective, Geophys. Monogr. Ser., vol. 196, edited by A. S. Sharma et al. 345–359, AGU, Washington, D. C., doi:10.1029/2011GM001086. [the article can also be obtained from here]

has appeared in

Sharma, A. S.,A. Bunde, P. Dimri, and D. N. Baker (Eds.) (2012), Extreme Events and Natural Hazards: The Complexity Perspective, Geophys. Monogr. Ser., vol. 196, 371 pp., AGU, Washington, D. C., doi:10.1029/GM196.

The description of the book is given on the AGU site as [highlight added]

Extreme Events and Natural Hazards: The Complexity Perspective examines recent developments in complexity science that provide a new approach to understanding extreme events. This understanding is critical to the development of strategies for the prediction of natural hazards and mitigation of their adverse consequences. The volume is a comprehensive collection of current developments in the understanding of extreme events. The following critical areas are highlighted: understanding extreme events, natural hazard prediction and development of mitigation strategies, recent developments in complexity science, global change and how it relates to extreme events, and policy sciences and perspective. With its overarching theme, Extreme Events and Natural Hazards will be of interest and relevance to scientists interested in nonlinear geophysics, natural hazards, atmospheric science, hydrology, oceanography, tectonics, and space weather.

The abstract of our article reads

“We discuss the adoption of a bottom-up, resource–based vulnerability approach in evaluating the effect of climate and other environmental and societal threats to societally critical resources.This vulnerability concept requires the determination of the major threats to local and regional water, food, energy, human health, and ecosystem function resources from extreme events including climate, but also from other social and environmental issues. After these threats are identified for each resource, then the relative risks can be compared with other risks in order to adopt optimal preferred mitigation/adaptation strategies.

This is a more inclusive way of assessing risks, including from climate variability and climate change than using the outcome vulnerability approach adopted by the IPCC. A contextual vulnerability assessment, using the bottom-up, resource-based framework is a more inclusive approach for policymakers to adopt effective mitigation and adaptation methodologies to deal with the complexity of the spectrum of social and environmental extreme events that will occur in the coming decades, as the range of threats are assessed, beyond just the focus on CO2 and a few other greenhouse gases as emphasized in the IPCC assessments.”

In the assessment of climate risks, the approach we recommend is an inversion of the IPCC process, where the threats from climate, and from other environmental and social risks are assessed first, before one inappropriately and inaccurately runs global climate models  to provide the envelope of future risks to key resources.