Natural Catastrophe Review: Expert insights, lessons learned, and outlook January–June 2023 wtwco.com Foreword Recent Events Outlook Contacts and Information 1 1 TA B L E O F C O N T E N TS Foreword Recent Events 1/ Foreword 03 2/ Recent Events 07 2.1 Worlds apart: Implications of the Türkiye earthquakes for California 08 2.2 Is the record number of convective storms in the first quarter a sign of things to come in the U.S.? 14 2.3 An unusually large number of Category 5 tropical cyclones 16 2.4 Building back better following Tropical Cyclone Gabrielle 18 2.5 Counting the costs of climate and land-use change after the Chilean Wildfires 22 2.6 Out of the woods: How far will Canada’s wildfires spread? 24 2.7 A view of catastrophic flooding from across the world 29 2.8 Emilia-Romagna floods: A product of urbanization and climate change 32 2.9 Why were there so few European winter windstorms in 2022/2023? 34 3/ Outlook 38 3.1 In the tropical Pacific, El Niño is in the wind 39 3.2 The 2023 North Atlantic hurricane season: Record hot Atlantic Ocean versus El Niño 43 4/ Contacts and Information 46 Outlook Contacts and Information 2 2 Foreword Foreword Recent Events Outlook Contacts and Information 3 3 Welcome Welcome to the latest issue of WTW’s Natural Catastrophe Review, a bi-annual publication that brings insights from our experts — including our WTW Research Network — to examine recent natural disasters, lessons learned, and emerging trends. We hope to provide new perspectives that will help with natural catastrophe risk management and resilience in sectors such as insurance, banking, government, and corporates across all industries. In this edition, we look at some of the physical, vulnerability, and socio-economic factors that contributed to natural disasters in the first half of 2023. We also consider what the rest of the year might hold with El Niño's return and the upcoming North Atlantic Hurricane season. The first six months of 2023 were dominated by the devastating Kahramanmaraş earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria and several weather-related catastrophes. A record-breaking start to the U.S. tornado season resulted in billions of dollars in damage, while the ongoing megadrought in Chile brought destructive wildfires. Canada is also experiencing its worst-ever wildfire season, with a record-breaking 8.33 million hectares destroyed after only two months of the May– September fire season. Cyclones Freddie, Gabriele, and Mocha had wide-ranging impacts in the Southern Hemisphere, and significant flooding affected a number of countries including Italy, Ethiopia, Somalia, Malaysia, Brazil, and New Zealand. Climate change will once again be at the forefront of business and government agendas as a result of these events. However, it is critical not to forget the role socio-economic factors play in determining the severity of extreme weather outcomes. It is nearly 20 years since Neil Smith – who was a Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Geography – published his seminal essay There’s No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster1. This was written in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and initiated a conversation on how we think about natural catastrophes. Natural hazards only become disasters when they intersect with an inadequately prepared society. Katrina was a disaster because underlying social inequalities in New Orleans worsened storm damage and challenged disaster recovery. The wildfires that ravaged Chile in February this year were a disaster because of the intermixing of forestry plantations and communities (Section 2.5). In New Zealand, flooding Smith, N. There's No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster. Understanding Katrina: perspectives from the social sciences 11, (2006). 1 Foreword Recent Events Outlook Contacts and Information 4 4 following Cyclone Gabriele was exacerbated by debris from forestry activity that clogged rivers and destroyed buildings and infrastructure (Section 2.4). And the recent devastation in Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region from flooding was worsened by land-use change (Section 2.8). If we are to improve resilience in a warming world, we must therefore look not only at how the frequency and severity of extreme weather events are changing, but also at how interactions between hazards and society are changing too. In New Zealand, there is a concerted effort to “build back better” following the second wettest summer on rec