This guide will help you get started with using the tool to understand climate-related hazards and their impacts on physical assets. Whether you're new to climate data or an experienced analyst, this guide will walk you through the basics so you can start exploring climate risk insights right away.
Follow this step-by-step guide for a basic overview of the map functionality. The map can be accessed here.
Selecting Climate Scenario Parameters
First, we need to select a combination of parameters for the desired climate scenario.
Select a Climate Risk Measure: Start by choosing a climate metric of interest from the drop-down menu. These are climate hazards curated by our team that may pose potential risks to infrastructure.
Choose a Scenario: Select one of the available climate scenarios (e.g., SSP126 for low emissions, SSP585 for high emissions). Scenarios help you understand potential futures under different climate action pathways.
Select a Timescale: Use the timeline slider to choose the time period you are interested in, ranging from the 2020s to the 2100s for all months. This lets you see how climate risks evolve over time for particular months of the year.
The example on the right illustrates a scenario where the selected measure is "% Area Covered by Burnt Vegetation"—used as a proxy for wildfire risk—under a moderate emissions projection for August in the 2060s.
Selecting Infrastructure Overlays
Second, we need to select the specific types of infrastructure we are interested in visualizing.
Select Infrastructure Overlays: On the right-hand side, you'll see a layers icon. Hover over it to reveal the available infrastructure overlays. In this example, the available infrastructure includes specific types of power grid data, which provides insight into its exposure under the selected climate scenario.
Download Data
From here, you can explore the map and your particular areas of interest visually to get a sense of asset exposure. You may wish to download the data to do an offline analysis, which can be done easily.
Draw a bounding box: On the right-hand side below the layers icon, there is a small black box icon. Clicking this will allow you to draw a box (or multiple boxes) over your area of interest.
Click Download Data: On the control panel, click the Download Data button to download a CSV file.
Download Data Output
Methodology
This section provides an overview of how the Climate Risk Mapping Application is built and the methodology behind its calculations and data processing.
Data Sources
Climate
% Area that is Covered by Burnt Vegetation: This initial variable for the prototype is sourced from CMIP6 (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6), which provides multiple scenarios of future climate conditions.
