From the UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT and the “data to date says otherwise, so why trust a model” department (see after the article)
Warming seas could lead to 70 percent increase in hurricane-related financial loss
If oceans warm at a rate predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nation-sponsored group that assesses climate change research and issues periodic reports, expected financial losses caused by hurricanes could increase more than 70 percent by 2100, according to a study just published in the journal Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure.
The finding is based on the panel’s most severe potential climate change – and resulting increased sea surface temperature – scenario and is predicted at an 80 percent confidence level.
The results of the study, which focused on 13 coastal counties in South Carolina located within 50 miles of the coastline, including the most populous county, Charleston, are drawn from a model simulating hurricane size, intensity, track and landfall locations under two scenarios: if ocean temperatures remain unchanged from 2005 to 2100 and if they warm at a rate predicted by the IPCC’s worst-case scenario.
Under the 2005 climate scenario, the study estimates that the expected loss in the region due to a severe hurricane — one with a 2 percent chance of occurring in 50 years — would be $7 billion. Under the warming oceans scenario, the intensity and size of the hurricane at the same risk level is likely to be much greater, and the expected loss figure climbs to $12 billion.
The model drew on hurricane data for the last 150 years gathered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, then created simulated hurricanes under the two scenarios over 100,000 years and estimated the damage from every storm that made landfall in the study area.
Researchers then overlaid information from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s HAZUS database, a zip-code-by-zip-code inventory of building types and occupancy. HAZUS sets out loss estimates according to wind speed for costs of repair, replacement, content and inventory, as well as costs resulting from loss of use, such rental income loss, business interruption and daily production output loss.
The researchers did not find that warming oceans will lead to more frequent hurricanes, only that warmer seas will lead to higher wind speeds and storms that are greater in size and therefore cover a larger area.
The losses are calculated based only on wind and wind-driven rain and do not include the large financial impacts of storm surge or flooding.
“The study shows that a significant increase in damage and loss is likely to occur in coastal Carolina, and by implication other coastal communities, as a result of climate change,” said one of the authors of the paper, David Rosowky, a civil engineer at the University of Vermont and the university’s provost.
“To be prepared, we need to build, design, zone, renovate and retrofit structures in vulnerable communities to accommodate that future,” he said.
The study was based on the IPPC’s Fifth Assessment, issued in 2013 and 2014. The worst-case ocean warming scenario the loss study is based on was not anticipated or included in the prior report, published in 2007.
“That suggests that these scenarios are evolving,” Rosowsky said. “What is today’s worst case scenario will likely become more probable in the IPCC’s future reports if little action is taken to slow the effects of climate change.”
The increasing severity of hurricanes will also affect hurricane modeling, Rosowsky said, and consequent predictions of damage and financial loss. In a postscript to the paper, which will also be published as a chapter in a forthcoming book, Rosowsky cites the three catastrophic storms of the current hurricane season, Harvey, Irma and Maria, as examples of events so severe they will shift the assumptions about the likelihood that such severe hurricanes will occur in the future.
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But, the data doesn’t support the claim:
Building codes can affect coastal hurricane damage as can population density, inflation, honesty of damage claims, the price of plywood and I’m certain a few other things so … why allow ‘them’ to steer the conversation on this basis in the first place? PDI and ACE are scientifically far more accurate ways of measuring hurricanes than trying to assess storm losses.
Even in this cherry picked graph from the EPA that purposefully ignores data before 1950, the correlation of PDI to SST looks pretty convincing …. up until about 2004 when it stopped correlating and we got a record long period of only category 2 or weaker storms hitting us despite experiencing the highest SST in modern history.
To believe that a warmer ocean causes stronger hurricanes but then also believe that the absence of them during a record warm period was caused by ‘something else’ requires belief in magic where the “something else” can only act in one direction. It requires belief that the presence of the “something else” can cause a lack of strong storms but the absence of the “something else” cannot possibly cause an increase of them.
That ‘something else’ must be that the atmosphere acts like a diode that only lets heat travel in one direction.
The data doesn’t support the claim.. Oh I dunno, I think hurricane losses have been 70%at least. We didn’t have any landfalls at all for 12years.
Gary Pearse October 13, 2017 at 11:31 am
The data doesn’t support the claim.. Oh I dunno, I think hurricane losses have been 70%at least. We didn’t have any landfalls at all for 12years.
Who’s ‘we’? Certainly not the US, South Carolina, the topic of the paper, had one last year for example.
Gary meant no major hurricanes. Sandy was a tropical storm when it made landfall in NYC and Matthew came ashore in SC as a Cat 1.
Technically a “post tropical storm”.
Sandy was a post tropical storm when it hit NYC so technically spoken that wasn’t even a category 1 hurricane (though it was equivalent to a category 1 hurricane)
Ophelia in ireland is just an example of this but that’s far from unusual. To be honest it is very normal to have here post tropical hurricanes when the season is active.
A lot of people forget 1966 where hurricane Faith struck the Faroer… as a hurricane
but for one time wikipedia is handy to show how many hurricanes do strike europa as post tropical storm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_cyclone_effects_in_Europe
What makes hurricane faith the more exceptional is that she came by after a series of very harsh winters in europe…
I stopped reading the article when I read “If oceans warm at a rate predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change” because everyone knows that the IPCC does not make predictions, they make projections. Obviously the whole article is therefore based on a false premise.
The Rockport Pilot just had an article about Copano Cove, a badly (~50%) damaged area mostly from wind, with some from a tidal surge from Copano Bay of maybe over 2 meters in places. The bay has a topographic trap at its south end where a new, lightly populated built too low subdivision also exists at the extreme. Many destroyed or badly damaged structures are subject to being forced to be elevated, not a high priority of someone living in a tent. The situation and some of the damage can be seen on Google Earth.
This is part of a “resilience‘ concept, the idealistic future, not so simple in the details.
http://missionaransas.org/linking-science-communication-municipal-planning-improve-and-transform-resilience
The county (Aransas) depends heavily on property tax, a sore point for years, and the loss of revenue is a serious problem, even if well spent.
This a quote from a local history book, “Aransas” from a few years ago deceased member of an old family.
“I guess one of the greatest fears I have is the ultimate hurricane. We’re going to get it one of these days, and its going to alter this town severely. It has in the past and its going to do it again.” Rockport was a major port lost to the higher land Corpus Christi, mostly from the 1919 storm. Developers here are meeting not only the hurricane threat, but an expanding whooping crane population and windmills marching north from Corpus Christi.
The response to Harvey has been exceptionally competent at all levels, this as one example which is difficult to believe without seeing it.
http://www.cityofrockport.com/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/2579
Whether the future resilience is properly executed is the subject of a lot of informed speculation including the trajectory of the costs.