Estimating Contemporary and Future Wind-Damage Losses from Hurricanes Affecting Eglin Air Force Base, Florida

Abstract

he strongest hurricanes over the North Atlantic Ocean are getting stronger, with the increase related to rising ocean temperature. Here, the authors develop a procedure for estimating future wind losses from hurricanes and apply it to Eglin Air Force Base along the northern coast of Florida. The method combines models of the statistical distributions for extreme wind speed and average sea surface temperature over the Gulf of Mexico with dynamical models for tropical cyclone wind fields and damage losses. Results show that the 1-in-100-yr hurricane from the twentieth century picked at random to occur in the year 2100 would result in wind damage that is 36% [(13%, 76%) = 90% confidence interval] greater solely as a consequence of the projected warmer waters in the Gulf of Mexico. The method can be applied elsewhere along the coast with modeling assumptions modified for regional conditions.