Assessing Climate Change Impact on the U.S. East Coast Hurricane Hazard: Temperature, Frequency, and Track

Abstract

This paper presents a study to assess the impact of possible future climate change on the hurricane wind hazard along the eastern coastline of the United States. Initially, climate change scenarios were coupled with state-of-the-art hurricane genesis, wind field, and tracking models to examine possible changes in hurricane intensity (maximum wind speed) and hurricane size (radius to maximum winds). A number of different postulated climate change models (IPCC scenarios) were considered. Each scenario suggested changes in sea surface temperature (SST), which is the driving parameter in most modern hurricane models. The evolution of hurricane genesis frequency was then considered both independently and jointly with hurricane intensification. State-of-the-art probabilistic event modeling and simulation techniques were used to generate 10,000 years of hurricane events under the 2005 and future climate conditions. The annual maximum wind speed distribution and the joint distribution of maximum wind speed and storm size, under 2005 and future climate scenarios, are then compared. Finally, the evolution of hurricane tracks was examined in an effort to establish a trend over time.