Assessing vulnerability and resilience to extreme events with computational models

Humanity has always faced extreme events that pose significant challenges due to their unpredictability and substantial impact. While, in the past, these events were relatively rare, recently, the frequency, intensity, and geographic spread of extreme events have increased dramatically, driven by factors like climate change and globalisation. The European heatwaves of 2022, 2023, and 2024, for instance, demonstrated how climate-driven extremes can severely impact modern societies, with tens of thousands of heat-related deaths. Likewise, the COVID-19 pandemic revealed the vulnerabilities in global preparedness for health crises, causing severe economic impacts and widespread social disruption. Both phenomena underscore the urgent need for enhanced resilience and preparedness in the face of increasingly frequent and intense extreme events....