Extreme Events: Observations, Modeling, and Economics

The monograph covers the fundamentals and the consequences of extreme geophysical phenomena like asteroid impacts, climatic change, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, landslides, volcanic eruptions, flooding, and space weather. This monograph also addresses their associated, local and worldwide socio-economic impacts. The understanding and modeling of these phenomena is critical to the development of timely worldwide strategies for the prediction of natural and anthropogenic extreme events, in order to mitigate their adverse consequences.

This monograph is unique in as much as it is dedicated to recent theoretical, numerical and empirical developments that aim to improve:

(i) the understanding, modeling and prediction of extreme events in the geosciences, and, (ii) the quantitative evaluation of their economic consequences. The emphasis is on coupled, integrative assessment of the physical phenomena and their socio-economic impacts.

With its overarching theme, Extreme Events: Observations, Modeling and Economics will be relevant to and become an important tool for researchers and practitioners in the fields of hazard and risk analysis in general, as well as to those with a special interest in climate change, atmospheric and oceanic sciences, seismo-tectonics, hydrology, and space weather.

Mario Chavez is a scientist at the Institute of Engineering in Mexico. He has served as a Secretary (1981-1983) and Vice President (1991-1993) of the Mexican Society for Earthquake Engineering AC, Network Director accelerograph and Seismological Research Institute for Engineering, Guadalajara, Mexico (1993-1998 ), and also as an External Adviser of the Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources of the Government of Mexico (2001-2003). He has published 30 articles in journals and 65 conferences, national and international, as well as 76 technical studies. He has directed 12 theses of Bachelor, Masters and 7 Doctoral. His research interests include seismic risk in urban and industrial environment, numerical modeling with supercomputer seismic waves propagation, and extreme events and their economic impact.

Michael Ghil is a distinguished research Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the Director of the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at UCLA. He joined the Dynamic Meteorology Laboratory (Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS)) in the year 2002 as a distinguished Professor of Geosciences. He is a highly cited author in the field of geosciences with his research focus on the physics of climate change on all time scales. He is the author of a dozen books and over 275 refereed articles (including the Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA) and book chapters in the area of geophysics and climate dynamics. His research interests include atmospheric and oceanic sciences, climate dynamics, dynamical and complex systems theory, estimation theory, extreme events and prediction, geophysical fluid dynamics, macroeconomics, numerical and statistical methods, remote sensing and applications. He was awarded the 2011 Alfred Wegener Medal from the European Geosciences Union and has been recognized as an honorary member of the Union in 2012.

Jaime Urrutia Fucugauchi is the Director of the Institute of Geophysics at National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) since 1997 and is a Professor at the Institute of Geophysics at UNAM since 1984. He is also the Chairman, Department of Geomagnetism and Geophysical Exploration at the Institute of Geophysics, UNAM (since 1984). He is a former President of the Mexican Geophysical Union (1985-1987). He has also served as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Geophysical Research (1993-1995) (American Geophysical Union). He has over 200 research articles in the field. His research interests include Geo- and Paleo-magnetism, Magnetostratigraphy, Paleogeography and Tectonics, Paleoclimatic and Environmental Evolution and Exploration Geophysics.