Ahead of the Storm: Implications of Changing Parameters in U.S. Tropical Cyclone Likelihood and Damage Estimation Models in the Face of Global Climate Change

Abstract

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports tropical cyclones have been occurring with increasing intensity as a result of global climate change. We examine these projections using stochastic modeling of tropical cyclone frequency and damages over two time periods in the United States. We fit Poisson models to U.S. tropical cyclone frequency data from a pre-climate change era to a post-climate change era and test equality of the Poisson rate parameters from each period to analyze changes in tropical cyclone frequency. We fit lognormal models to damages per storm (adjusted for inflation, population, and wealth) for both time periods. We test the equality of parameters ? and ? over the two time periods to evaluate changes in intensity and volatility of U.S. tropical cyclones. We found significant changes in tropical cyclone behavior between the two time periods with the onset of global climate change.