Blog

Last year Texas had more severe hail events than any state in the country, causing $1.7 billion in insured losses statewide. The prevalence of hail in Texas has been the stimulus for the Texas Department of Insurance's sponsorship of the first annual War on Hail Symposium on November 27th. I'll be a panelist on the "Technology and Tools" roundtable, discussing future web-based application of weather related tools.

AER is hosting a noontime seminar by MIT Professor Susan Solomon on “Emerging Signals of Climate Changes: Where in the World will Climate Change First?" A leading atmospheric chemist, Solomon will summarize recent research showing the surprising result that an early onset of significant local warming that exceeds past variability is already emerging or will likely emerge in the next two decades in many tropical countries.

Not Your Typical Hurricane

Dr. Bryan Woods is presenting his analysis of Delaware's offshore windpower at AWEA Offshore Windpower Conference 2012. In his presentation, A 30-Year Wind Climatology off the Coast of Delaware From High-Resolution Numerical Weather Prediction, he demonstrates the importance of down-scaled numerical weather simulations versus coarse-resolution reanalysis data and shows the resulting dramatically different shape of wind distributions. The poster will be presented today at 4:30 PM - 5:30 PM.

Have you looked at AER’s energy forecasts lately? If not, you might want to take another look. Seasonal Forecast - Our highly accurate seasonal and sub-seasonal forecasts have earned their reputation as a go-to source for traders. AER’s winter forecast will be released in a month, and we've nailed it the last 3 years running – we don't think it's luck. Will you be taking advantage of our insights?

Last week, I and about 600 other scientists attended the biennial International Global Atmospheric Chemistry (IGAC) conference in Beijing, China. This year’s theme was “Atmospheric Chemistry in the Anthropocene” – that is, how people have changed our atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution.

SwissRe and AER focus on space weather, grid infrastructure risk and the amount of exposure in today’s electricity-dependent society. For example, a very strong geomagnetic storm in 1989, caused a nine-hour power outage over the whole province of Quebec.

AER's Fireline tool for underwriting wildfire risk is cited in the recent ISO blog "How to Manage Wildfire Risk Effectively" http://www.iso.com/blog/property/how-to-manage-wildfire-risk-effectively/

Dr. Eli Mlawer's research Ground-based high spectral resolution observations of the entire terrestrial spectrum under extremely dry conditions published in the AGU's Geophysical Research Letters in May was selected as an Editors’ Highlight choice.

Joy Rohde, Director of Market Strategy at AER, presents "Solar Storms: Protecting Against the Sun's 'Dark Side'" at The MEARIE Conference 2012 in Minett, Ontario at 8:35am on Wednesday, June 27th. The MEARIE Group is the only Canadian insurance supplier dedicated to the electricity distribution sector.