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Quote: “What I hear, I forget. What I see, I remember. What I do, I understand.” (Xunzi, ∼300 BCE). Modelling complex interactions involving climatic features, socio-economic vulnerability or responses, and long impact transmissions is associated with substantial uncertainty. Physical climate storylines are proposed as an approach to explore complex impact transmission pathways and possible alternative unfoldings of event cascades under future climate conditions. These storylines are particularly useful for climate risk assessment for complex domains, including event cascades crossing multiple disciplinary or geographical borders. For an effective role in climate risks assessments, development guidelines are needed to consistently develop and interpret the storyline event analyses. This paper elaborates on the suitability of physical climate storyline approaches involving climate event induced shocks propagating into societal impacts. It proposes a set of common elements to construct the event storylines. In addition, criteria for their application for climate risk assessment are given, referring to the need for storylines to be physically plausible, relevant for the specific context, and risk-informative. Apart from an illustrative gallery of storyline examples found in literature, three examples of varying scope and complexity are presented in detail, all involving the potential impact on European socio-economic sectors induced by remote climate change features occurring far outside the geographical domain of the European mainland. The storyline examples illustrate the application of the proposed storyline components and evaluate the suitability of the criteria defined in this paper. It thereby contributes to a rigorous design and application of event-based climate storyline approaches.

Around 80 % of global soybean supply is produced in southeast South America (SESA), central Brazil (CB) and the United States (US) alone. This concentration of production in few regions makes global soybean supply sensitive to spatially compounding harvest failures. Weather variability is a key driver of soybean variability, with soybeans being especially vulnerable to hot and dry conditions during the reproductive growth stage in summer. El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) teleconnections can influence summer weather conditions across the Americas, presenting potential risks for spatially compounding harvest failures. Here, we develop causal structural models to quantify the influence of ENSO on soybean yields via mediating variables like local weather conditions and extratropical sea surface temperatures (SSTs). We show that soybean yields are predominately driven by soil moisture conditions in summer, explaining ∼50 %, 18 % and 40 % of yield variability in SESA, CB and the US respectively. Summer soil moisture is strongly driven by spring soil moisture, as well as by remote extratropical SST patterns in both hemispheres. Both of these soil moisture drivers are again influenced by ENSO. Our causal models show that persistent negative ENSO anomalies of −1.5 standard deviation (SD) lead to a −0.4 SD soybean reduction in the US and SESA. When spring soil moisture and extratropical SST precursors are pronouncedly negative (−1.5 SD), then estimated soybean losses increase to −0.9 SD for the US and SESA. Thus, by influencing extratropical SSTs and spring soil moisture, persistent La Niñas can trigger substantial soybean losses in both the US and SESA, with only minor potential gains in CB. Our findings highlight the physical pathways by which ENSO conditions can drive spatially compounding events. Such information may increase preparedness against climate-related global soybean supply shocks.

Quote: “What I hear, I forget. What I see, I remember. What I do, I understand.” (Xunzi, ∼300 BCE). Modelling complex interactions involving climatic features, socio-economic vulnerability or responses, and long impact transmissions is associated with substantial uncertainty. Physical climate storylines are proposed as an approach to explore complex impact transmission pathways and possible alternative unfoldings of event cascades under future climate conditions. These storylines are particularly useful for climate risk assessment for complex domains, including event cascades crossing multiple disciplinary or geographical borders. For an effective role in climate risks assessments, development guidelines are needed to consistently develop and interpret the storyline event analyses. This paper elaborates on the suitability of physical climate storyline approaches involving climate event induced shocks propagating into societal impacts. It proposes a set of common elements to construct the event storylines. In addition, criteria for their application for climate risk assessment are given, referring to the need for storylines to be physically plausible, relevant for the specific context, and risk-informative. Apart from an illustrative gallery of storyline examples found in literature, three examples of varying scope and complexity are presented in detail, all involving the potential impact on European socio-economic sectors induced by remote climate change features occurring far outside the geographical domain of the European mainland. The storyline examples illustrate the application of the proposed storyline components and evaluate the suitability of the criteria defined in this paper. It thereby contributes to a rigorous design and application of event-based climate storyline approaches., Climate Risk Management, 40, ISSN:2212-0963

Background: The use of CT angiography (CTA) or venous couplers (VCs) has led to shorter operative times in free flap breast reconstruction (FFBR). However, there are no reports on the effect of these two interventions relative to each other or combined.\ud \ud Methods: Abdominal based FFBRs performed by a single surgeon before introduction of either intervention were compared to those with VC only, and those after the addition of CTA to VCs (CT-VC). Operative time was defined as from “knife-to-skin” to insertion of the last stitch.\ud \ud Results: One hundred and twenty patients; 40 without intervention (WI), 40 with VC, and 40 with CT-VC. Introduction of VCs did not significantly reduce operative time compared to WI (P=0.73). However, patients in the CT-VC group had significantly shorter operations vs. WI (472 vs. 586 min, P

Background: The use of CT angiography (CTA) or venous couplers (VC) has led to shorter operative times in free flap breast reconstruction (FFBR). However, there are no reports on the effect of these two interventions relative to each other or combined. \ud Methods: Abdominal based FFBRs performed by a single surgeon before introduction of either intervention were compared to those with venous couplers only (VC), and those after the addition of CTA to VCs (CT-VC). Operative time was defined as from “knife-to-skin” to insertion of the last stitch. \ud Results: 120 patients; 40 without intervention (WI), 40 with VC, and 40 with CT-VC. Introduction of VCs did not significantly reduce operative time compared to WI (p=0.73). However, patients in the CT-VC group had significantly shorter operations versus WI (472vs586 mins, p

Background: Abdominal scars can affect the patency of deep inferior epigastric artery (DIEA) perforators and are a concern when planning free flap breast reconstruction (FFBR). Computed tomographic angiography (CTA) is routinely used for preoperative DIEA flap imaging. We investigated CTA utility in predicting the most clinically useful DIEA perforators in scarred abdomens.\ud Methods: A single surgeon’s CTA FFBR patients were studied. All were imaged by one radiologist. CTA reports, abdominal scars and flap intraoperative details were analysed. The operative findings were then correlated with the CTA "predictions".\ud Results: 106 patients with preoperative CTAs underwent 132 FFBRs, 44% (58) from scarred and 56% (74) from virgin abdomens. All flap transfers were successful. Concordance between perforators identified by CTA preoperatively and those selected by the surgeon intraoperatively was 95% (scarred 93%; non-scarred 96%, p=0.470). There was a significant difference in the proportion of single-perforator flaps between the two groups (scarred 46%; non-scarred 28%, p=0.041). “Scarred” flaps were heavier (789 vs 676g, p=0.0244) than those harvested from virgin abdomens. \ud Conclusion: CTA accurately predicted perforator choice in flaps from scarred and virgin abdomens. Discovery of incidental CTA abnormalities can prevent doomed-to-fail or unsafe flap surgery. “Scarred” flaps are more likely to be heavier and based on one perforator suggesting that scarring may have an effect on intra-flap vascular anatomy. Further investigations are needed to delineate the mechanism by which this occurs.