The Impact of Climate Change on Hurricane Damages in the United States

This paper quantifies hurricane damage
caused by climate change across the US. A damage function is
estimated from historic hurricane data to measure the
impacts at each location given the storm's strength.
The minimum barometric pressure of each storm turns out to
be a better indicator of damages than the traditional
measure of maximum wind speed. A hurricane generator in the
Atlantic Ocean is then used to create 5000 storms with and
without climate change. Combining the location and intensity
of each storm with the income and population projected for
each location, it is possible to estimate a detailed picture
of how hurricanes will impact each state with and without
climate change. Income and population growth alone increase
expected baseline damage from $9 to $27 billion per year by
2100. Climate change is expected to increase damage by
another $40 billion. Over 85 percent of these impacts are in
Florida and the Gulf states. The 10 percent most damaging
storms cause 93 percent of expected damage.