Storylines, defined as “physically self-consistent unfoldings of past events, or of plausible future events or pathways,” can be used to describe risks and impacts of climate-driven trends or extreme events while making uncertainty, assumptions and decision relevance explicit. They provide a powerful framework to investigate short- to long-term climate risk pathways driven by the interplay of hazard, exposure, vulnerability and response capacity, including compound and cascading risks, stress testing of systems, and intervention options in uncertain futures. As boundary objects across climate science, disaster risk reduction, adaptation, social sciences and operational decision-making, they can support dialogue across disciplines, but also reveal that communities do not always share the same definitions, evidence standards or expectations of use. 
This session brings together researchers and practitioners working across climate science, impacts and risk assessment, disaster risk reduction, social sciences and decision practice to advance the physical understanding, methodological development and application of climate risk storylines. We welcome contributions that span the full chain from physical climate modelling and event attribution to impact analysis, participatory co-production, and the translation of scenarios into real-world decision contexts.
We invite abstracts that address, among others:
a) Physical and impact-based climate storylines, including past events, attribution studies, downward counterfactuals and plausible future extremes
b) Methods for integrating quantitative and qualitative knowledge, and linking climate and non-climate risk drivers across scales
c) Conceptual models and frameworks for combining hazards, exposure, vulnerability, response capacity and cascading impacts
d) Applications of storylines and scenarios for stress testing, impact and risk assessment, early warning systems, adaptation planning and policy support
e) Participatory and co-production approaches that enhance relevance, transparency, robustness and uptake for decision-making
f) Reflections on terminology, quality criteria and responsible translation of storylines across scientific, policy and practice communities
By bridging physical modelling, socioeconomic pathways and stakeholder-driven approaches, this session aims to strengthen the role of storylines as shared, transparent and actionable tools for managing climate risks in a rapidly changing world.