AIR Worldwide launches new service for real-time climate risk analysis

Catastrophe modelling firm AIR Worldwide has introduced a new service for corporations and emergency management agencies to manage and assess their risk from natural catastrophes.

Dubbed Real-Time Climate Risk Analytics, the service “addresses the uncertainty in data reported in real time by incorporating a wide range of catastrophe loss scenarios, including low-probability but high-impact outcomes, for improved planning and decision making,” the firm said.

Companies or agencies can receive a real-time view of their risk specific to the vulnerabilities of their assets (such as industrial facilities or retail locations), AIR said.

“AIR developed Real-Time Climate Risk Analytics in direct response to a need expressed by our clients for a customizable solution that quantifies the risk of storm activity prior to landfall and assesses what the resulting physical and financial impacts could be to their properties,” Dr. Peter Dailey, vice president and director of atmospheric science at AIR, noted in a statement on the new service.

Combined with the firm’s Catastrophe Risk Engineering services, AIR said it can provide a fuller offering, from site-specific analysis, to the real-time services, Dailey noted.

“This is a significant improvement over other solutions that look only at real-time hazard data,” he added. “Decisions can now be made based on the physical and financial risk to the assets under consideration.”

The new service uses ClimateCast, a web-based application that tracks and assesses risk from active tropical cyclones in the Atlantic basin, including the potential for onshore and offshore losses in the United States and Gulf of Mexico, AIR said.

The application is updated four times a day and uses data from the National Hurricane Center in the U.S. and other meteorological organizations worldwide, tracking storm activity from June 1 and updating throughout the hurricane season, according to AIR.

“Corporate risk managers can apply Real-Time Climate Risk Analytics to strategic planning, operational planning, and real-time decision making,” AIR noted. “The service can improve strategic planning by playing out a wide range of simulated storm scenarios, including those more intense than have been observed historically.”

“We’re confident the applications will help risk managers do their jobs more effectively and make more informed and confident risk management decisions,” Dailey added.