Estimating local socioeconomic vulnerability to climate shocks using satellite imagery: IRES Faculty Seminar with Dr. Jonathan Proctor

Understanding how climate hazards like extreme heat and flooding influence human wellbeing is critical for preparing societies for climate change. Yet empirical estimates of how vulnerability to climate hazards differs across space is limited by both a lack of knowledge about and data on determinants of climate adaptation. Here, we leverage the rich and diverse information within satellite imagery to predict local climate vulnerability in the U.S. and globally. Including imagery information into empirical models of how temperature and moisture influence agricultural productivity, how temperature influences human mortality and how flood depth damages buildings, improves model predictions of historic damages from climate hazards and reveals substantial local differences in climate vulnerability and resilience.