Preface to the special issue on Extreme Events and its Applications

Abstract

In popular imagery, extreme events mostly relate to natural disasters such as the earthquakes, floods and cyclones. However, such extreme phenomena occur in other domains as well and indeed lead to major societal and economic impacts. The financial down-turns, power black-outs, internet outages, traffic grid-locks in highways, congestion in communication networks are all now a part of the lore of extreme events. Record breaking events, such as the sport records and other unusual records glorified by the Guiness Book of World Records, also fall in this broad genre of extreme events. As a scientific and mathematical discipline, Extreme Value Theory (EVT) and the theory of records have been much studied in the past half-century both by theory and phenomenology starting with the seminal work of Gumbel (1958). Since then, extreme value theory has become relevant for physical process as well, especially in the context of non-equilibrium statistical physics. Needless to say that, current debates on the climate change effects and the recent financial disasters have led to a resurgence in both the theoretical study of extreme events as well as its contemporary applications.