Jupiter in the news

While much of the world is focused on decarbonization — as it should be — there is a significant looming and highly overlooked danger organizations face today, says Rich Sorkin of Jupiter Intelligence. And, he says, it’s one that can have significant effects on our global economy: physical climate risk.

“In some cases, homeowners won’t be able to get coverage, or they will have to pay more, or they will have less reliable coverage,” said Rich Sorkin, chief executive of Jupiter Intelligence, a climate risk analytics company.

“Forecasts for rapid intensification used to be rare, but as scientific knowledge and forecast skill continue to incrementally improve, we can expect to see more such forecasts,” said Rich Sorkin, chief executive of Jupiter Intelligence, which tracks climate risk.

Here’s how scientists measure the extreme temperatures currently scorching 44% of the world’s oceans. “You can kind of think of El Niño and La Niña as a toggle war in the tropical Pacific,” said Hillary Scannell, an oceanographer and data scientist at Jupiter Intelligence. With La Niña, “cold water gets upwelled along the South American coast and that cold ocean temperature kind of acts as air conditioning to the climate system.” Now that that’s over, El Niño is taking over with its warm waters, disrupting atmospheric circulation and weather worldwide.

Climate risk can be tough to quantify, but doing so has grown in importance due to regulatory attention and increased difficulty obtaining property insurance coverage for it. In response, Fannie Mae Chief Climate Officer Tim Judge is using his background in analytics and modeling to try to predict and address its impact on the government-sponsored enterprise's sizable mortgage portfolio.

A jury verdict that found an Oregon power company liable for devastating wildfires — and potentially billions of dollars in damages — is highlighting the legal and financial risks utilities take if they fail to take proper precautions in a hotter, drier climate. Josh Hacker, chief science officer at Jupiter, said of lawsuit damages. “This is an enormous challenge. Now it’s biting them. And in the end it’s going to bite all of us, because they have to recover that expense.”

Jeff Ward, Jupiter's Global Public Sector Climate Account Executive, has been named one of WashingtonExec’s Top Climate Change Execs to Watch in 2023. The list highlights industry executives who are dedicated to creating solutions, building sustainable infrastructures, making geospatial data more accessible, and applying their environmental science expertise to help the White House on climate change initiatives.

A panel at Commercial Risk’s Construction Risk Management Europe conference highlighted how climate change is impacting construction risk management, noting how historical data is a poor indicator of future trends. Stuart Large, business development director at Jupiter, said that historical data might show a trend for higher weather-related losses over the last 20 or 30 years. But he added that given the pace of losses from most perils is accelerating, models are a much better indicator for future trends.

Fannie Mae revealed it has been working with a set of climate risk analytics from Jupiter Intelligence to assess its portfolio of over 17 million single- and multifamily assets to quantify the extent to which its holdings are exposed to potential damage from natural disasters.

The Series C Financing is co-led by Clearvision Ventures and MPower Partners. Jupiter now provides analytics to 30 companies in the Global 2000, U.S. Department of Defense and FEMA to understand the impact of climate change on their physical infrastructure and supply chains, risks to financial portfolios, and vulnerabilities to human health and safety, and to protect over ten billion dollars of physical assets and more than a trillion dollars of financial assets.

Jupiter will join insurance and utility industry leaders along with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and others in a program at San Jose State University’s Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center (WIRC).

Jupiter announced a major expansion of its work in Japan—adding an industry leading Japan-based venture investor MPower Partners. MPower is Japan’s first ESG-focused global venture capital firm and the first female-led VC firm in Japan.

The Columbia Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Applied Physics, and Applied Mathematics, author, and podcast host further strengthens Jupiter’s unmatched scientific expertise. “We are excited that Adam will bring his knowledge and enthusiasm to continue our efforts at providing the economy with the best science possible,” said Josh Hacker, Jupiter’s Chief Scientist and Co-founder.

Leavitt is a legal pioneer on emerging standards of care in the construction and engineering design resiliency of structures that are threatened by extreme weather from climate change as well as the legal ramifications of failing to adapt to climate change.

In collaboration with MS&AD InterRisk Research & Consulting, the goal of the enhancement is to resolve the lack of scientific data and completeness in terms of subject regions, and other issues regarding climate change scenario analysis.

The alliance combines Guidehouse’s utility industry expertise with Jupiter’s global-scale analytics platform to provide clients with a comprehensive and transparent climate change risk assessment as a key part of an advanced integrated planning strategy.

As the Biden-Harris administration renews its commitment to addressing climate change, Jupiter also announced its support for greater federal coordination of climate information services, emphasizing the need for better governance and the formation of a new Federal Climate Service (FCS). Jupiter’s public sector work has accelerated under the new administration, with risk planning and resilience projects underway or complete with the U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and multiple other entities within the Executive Branch as well as grant funded work with the National Science Foundation and NASA.

Despite the impact of the global pandemic, Jupiter added several new marquee customers in the past year and looks forward to the Biden Administration’s investments and policies in science, greenhouse gas reduction, and resilience.