Page - 65 - in Loss and Damage from Climate Change - Concepts, Methods and Policy Options

3 ObservedandProjected Impacts fromExtremeWeatherEvents… 65 Fig.3.1 Risk framework for theanalysisof extremeevent impacts. Source IPCC(2012) planning that helps to reduce exposure, aswell as the absorption of losses through risk transfer suchas insurance, therebychangingvulnerability. 3.1.2 ExtremeWeather ImpactsandLossandDamage Impactsfromanthropogenicclimatechangearemanifold,andtherearemostlynega- tiveconsequences,especiallywithhigherratesofwarming,aswellasafewpositive effects.Herewe focus on the impacts fromextremeweather events. This provides only apartial picture ofLoss andDamage, as theremaybenegative consequences from climate change that are not related to extremeweather events. Such impacts occur becauseofmoregradual shifts, often called slow-onset processes, in climate variables such as average (seasonal) land-surface temperatures, average rainfall, as wellasothervariables,suchassea-levelrise, lossoficeandsnow-cover,andincreas- ing temperatures of water bodies such as rivers, lakes and oceans. These impacts include shifts or loss of ecosystems and biodiversity, coastal erosion and loss of land,submergenceof low-lyingislandsandatolls,changes inagriculturalyield,and loss of indigenous and cultural practices and traditions.Many of such impacts are treated in this book in the chapters by Serdeczny (2018) and van der Geest et al. (2018). Still, aconsiderableshareof impactsonnaturalandhumansystemsisassociated withchangesinweatherextremesasaresultofnaturalclimatevariability,andpossi- blyalsoanthropogenicclimatechange.Anadvantageforresearchisthatimpactsfrom extremeweather events are relativelywell-documentedacross theglobe, compared