Climate AI Startups Offer Businesses Shelter From Inclement Weather Risk

A cold snap in Texas earlier this year shut down refineries and chemical plants. Drought in Taiwan continues to put pressure on semiconductor manufacturing capacity. And in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, businesses are still recovering from losses as a result of recent record high temperatures.

The increased frequency and severity of natural catastrophes has sparked a growing industry of climate-analytics companies that aim to help businesses gauge both short- and long-term threats.

Weather and climate forecasting services have existed for decades, but historic climate data is proving to be less effective in helping to predict future events. There have been eight extreme events in 2021 with losses exceeding $1 billion as of July 9. In all of 1980 there were three, adjusting for inflation, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

More than 8,000 suppliers of goods and services to large corporations reported that $1.26 trillion of their revenue is likely at risk over the next five years because of climate change, deforestation and water security, according to a report by CDP, a nonprofit platform for corporate environmental disclosures.

These new climate-analytics companies combine troves of historical and current data with sophisticated artificial-technology techniques and systems, including neural networks, to help account for the increasing velocity of events linked to climate change.