Construction and Application of a Climate Risk Index for China

In the context of global warming, China is facing with increasing climate risks. It is imperative to develop quantitative indices to reflect the climate risks caused by extreme weather/climate events and adverse climatic conditions in association with different industries. Based on the observations at 2288 meteorological stations in China and the meteorological disasters data, a set of indices are developed to measure climate risks due to water-logging, drought, high temperature, cryogenic freezing, and typhoon. A statistical method is then used to construct an overall climate risk index (CRI) for China from these individual indices. There is a good correspondence between these indices and historical climatic conditions. The CRI, the index of water-logging by rain, and the high temperature index increase at a rate of 0.28, 0.37, and 0.65 per decade, respectively, from 1961 to 2016. The cryogenic freezing index is closely related to changes in the consumer price index for food. The high temperature index is correlated with the consumption of energy and electricity. The correlation between the yearly growth in claims on household property insurance and the sum of the water-logging index and the typhoon index in the same year is as high as 0.70. Both the growth rate of claims on agricultural insurance and the annual growth rate of hospital inpatients are positively correlated with the CRI. The year-on-year growth in the number of domestic tourists is significantly negatively correlated with the CRI in the same year. More efforts are needed to develop regional CRIs.