At Lucid Home, our goal is to make climate research accessible to anyone buying a home. We focus on five key risk factors that relate to your investment in the home and the area, as well as your personal health. We then combine these factors into a single measure we call the Lucid Grade.
We estimate extreme heat risk using the number of days per year with wet-bulb temperatures above 95℉. Wet-bulb temperature accounts for both heat and humidity. It reflects the “feels-like” temperature and the human body's ability to cool down. In the Lucid Home extreme heat risk factor grade we consider the number of days with wet-bulb above 95℉ because a sustained wet-bulb temperature exceeding 95℉ is likely to be fatal even for healthy people, unclothed in the shade and next to a fan. At this temperature human bodies can't shed heat and instead absorb it from the surrounding environment.
We use simulation models from the World Climate Research Program's Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6), which include 100+ climate models, developed by 50 modeling centers around the world. We use CMIP6 to project out to the year 2050 to help you consider how extreme heat will change over time in your area. We calculate this under the SSP5-8.5 scenario which constitutes a “worst-case, no mitigations done” baseline scenario.
Flooding can destroy your home and your well being. Even regions with drought can experience flooding if there is severe rain or sea-level rise. As the climate changes, we see an increased severity of flooding. Lucid Home tracks flooding levels today and those projected into the future. This model incorporates the four major contributors to flooding: tidal, rain, riverine and storm surge. These factors are combined to determine a property's potential risk of flooding at least once over a 30 year time period.
To understand the risk of wildfire to your home, we look at Carbon Plan's Risks to Forest Carbon model. The former incorporates wildfire fuels, such as trees and other vegetation as well as homes as potential fuels for wildfire spread to other homes. These fuel sources are then considered under past and future weather conditions (e.g. temperature, wind, and drought). The latter model is a regression model fitting historical data from the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) to CMIP6 climate and vegetation variables.
The consequences of drought can be far-reaching, impacting water quality, public health, the economy, the natural environment, public infrastructure, and more. To measure drought, we leverage the Drought Severity and Coverage Index (DSCI) from the National Drought Mitigation Center in collaboration with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the United States Department of Agriculture, and Department of Commerce. We incorporate drought levels over time to evaluate trends, and across varying severities to measure impact.
How a community and government can withstand climate disasters is another important factor we consider. Resiliency estimates how well prepared the region is for climate disasters and how well it will recover if a climate disaster hits. Lucid Home’s Resiliency grade builds on the framework from the Climate Resilience Screening Index (CRSI) developed by the U.S. Global Research Change Program and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). We include 117 metrics that aim to measure a wide gamut of relevant domains, from the quality of sewer and power services to measuring the quality of emergency and civil services that can respond to climate disasters.