International

New hurricane prediction model

According to a scientist speaking at a research seminar recently organised by broker Willis, advances in supercomputing capacity and new approaches to climate modelling will enable the scientific, risk modelling and financial services communities to benefit from more accurate projections of future variations and trends in critical weather systems. Dr Greg Holland from the National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) said new models developed by NCAR will enable the insurance sector to better deal with Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico hurricane risk as a result of NCAR’s enhanced ability (through the use of super computers) to model changes in future location, frequency, wind severity and rainfall of hurricane tracks across key Atlantic regions. Dr. Holland delivered the keynote presentation at a Willis Research Network (WRN) seminar in London. Dr. Holland said that the modelling of high impact weather systems, responsible for local flash flooding, hurricanes and European Windstorms, require computer models of a complexity and scale hitherto only possible for short-term weather forecasts. But, after three years of testing and development, NCAR’s new program is currently nearing the completion of a 50-year projection of variations in Atlantic hurricanes and western US precipitation, Dr. Holland said. The first results is expected to come in during the first few months of 2009. The Willis conference was attended by 250 insurance professionals, scientists and academics from around the world.