New Research: Climate Change could expose North America, East Asia and the Caribbean to costly hurricane damage
Researchers from MIT and Yale University have found that coastal regions of North America and the Caribbean, as well as East Asia, are most at risk for hurricane damage. However, the researchers say by the year 2100, two factors could more than quadruple the economic damages caused by tropical storms in such regions and around the world: growing income and global warming.
In a paper published this week in Nature Climate Change, researchers developed a model to predict hurricanes around the world, looking at how hurricane activity might change in the next 100 years both with and without climate change.
Even in a world without climate change, where rates of greenhouse gas emissions remain stable, the researchers found that annual economic damages from hurricanes could double in the next century: Global population is expected to reach 9 billion by 2100, likely leading to more development along hurricane-prone coastlines. Given such growth, the researchers projected that worldwide annual damage from hurricanes — currently $26 billion, could increase to $56 billion in the next century.
Under a similar economic scenario, but with the added factor of climate change, the team found that annual hurricane damage could quadruple to $109 billion by 2100. According to the researchers’ model, proliferating greenhouse gases would likely increase the incidence of severe tropical cyclones and hurricanes, which would increase storm-related damage.
Furthermore, the researchers found that the distribution of damage is not even across the world. Their model indicates that climate change would cause the most hurricane-related damage in North America, followed by East Asia, Central America and the Caribbean. The rest of the world — particularly the Middle East, Europe and South America — would remain relatively unscathed, experiencing little to no hurricane activity.
Via Physorg Image NASA
