Severe convection and tropical cyclone risk: Collaborations between academia and industry

The Initiative held two events this spring which have been written up in documents now available online.

Our Severe Convection and Climate Workshop, held on March 9-10, 2016, is described in detail in a report lead-authored by John Allen (formerly of IRI, now an Assistant Professor at Central Michigan University) for the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

On May 9, we held an invitation-only event on tropical cyclone risk modeling, which has been written up in a blog post by our industry colleague Alice Underwood of Willis Towers Watson.

A primary theme of both these events was collaboration between academia and the insurance and reinsurance industry. With both tropical cyclones and severe convective storms, academic researchers and industry scientists have strong common interests, as well as differences in perspective that lead to very enlightening discussions and mutual learning when we get together in a focused way. A primary goal of the Initiative is to continue facilitating these discussions, and to foster the relationships that make this collaboration possible.