TRANSCLIMA: unprecedented hazards in coastal areas – UHINAK 2024

This record contains the slides of the presentation given at UHINAK 2024, the VI Cross-border Conference on Climate Change and the Coast, held at FICOBA, Irun (Gipuzkoa, Spain), on 23–24 October 2024. The presentation introduces TRANSCLIMA (Detection and Global Risk Assessment of Coastal Transitional Climate and Neo-Climate Regions in a Warming World), a Marie Skłodowska-Curie project on how coastal areas can adapt to unprecedented hazards. Climate change is shifting where and how tropical cyclones (TCs) occur. Storms are moving poleward and some coasts, including parts of the eastern North Atlantic and the Mediterranean, are already being affected by tropical or tropical storms that are unusual for them. An unprecedented hazard is one that a region has not experienced before, either because it is new to the area or because it exceeds past events in severity. Where this happens, historical records, building standards and emergency plans may not be adequate, and the local experience needed to respond may be missing. The presentation explains the concept of transitional and neoclimatic regions, which TRANSCLIMA uses to identify coastal areas where TC hazard may change or appear for the first time, and discusses what this means for adaptation.