On the Inherent Ambiguity of Extreme Event Costs Attributed to Climate Change
- 1Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Cornell University Ithaca NY USA
- 2Department of Geosciences Princeton University Princeton NJ USA
- 3Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences Princeton University Princeton NJ USA
Abstract
The excess costs of an extreme weather and climate event exacerbated by climate change are inherently ambiguous, even under perfect knowledge of climate and society, because these costs can be attributed by considering whether the event might not have happened (frequency change) or whether it might have been weaker (intensity change). Despite this inherent ambiguity, these approaches can be related by embedding each within a theoretical framework of an event arrival process, whence each approach provides a different estimator for a common quantity: excess costs per time, as needed for determining loss and damage. Each approach can consistently estimate the true excess cost rates, but only subject to restrictive conditions on their methods (some common examples of which are found to be inconsistent) and on climate and society (for which some conditions have never been evaluated). Seemingly minor technical choices can have major effects on the interpretation of attributable costs, with broad implications for their intended uses in litigation, reparations, adaptation, and planning.
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BibTeX
@article{match2026inherent,
title = {{On the Inherent Ambiguity of Extreme Event Costs Attributed to Climate Change}},
author = {A. L. Match and B. E. Schaffer and S. Fueglistaler},
journal = {AGU Advances},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.1029/2026av002546},
url = {https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2026AV002546},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - On the Inherent Ambiguity of Extreme Event Costs Attributed to Climate Change
AU - A. L. Match
AU - B. E. Schaffer
AU - S. Fueglistaler
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/30
JO - AGU Advances
DO - 10.1029/2026av002546
UR - https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2026AV002546
AB - The excess costs of an extreme weather and climate event exacerbated by climate change are inherently ambiguous, even under perfect knowledge of climate and society, because these costs can be attributed by considering whether the event might not have happened (frequency change) or whether it might have been weaker (intensity change). Despite this inherent ambiguity, these approaches can be related by embedding each within a theoretical framework of an event arrival process, whence each approach provides a different estimator for a common quantity: excess costs per time, as needed for determining loss and damage. Each approach can consistently estimate the true excess cost rates, but only subject to restrictive conditions on their methods (some common examples of which are found to be inconsistent) and on climate and society (for which some conditions have never been evaluated). Seemingly minor technical choices can have major effects on the interpretation of attributable costs, with broad implications for their intended uses in litigation, reparations, adaptation, and planning.
SN - 2576-604X
SN - 2576-604X
ER -