An estimate of future US storm-surge damage suggests costs could swell by almost twenty per cent of the current annual average.
Rising sea levels in the coming decades will substantially increase storm-surge damage along some US shores, a study suggests.
By combining estimates of sea-level rise with statistical models of past hurricane activity, a team led by climate scientist Ross Hoffman at Atmospheric and Environmental Research in Lexington, Massachusetts, estimated1 expected storm-surge risk along the Atlantic Seaboard and Gulf Coast in 2030. If sea-level trends observed along those shores in recent decades are extrapolated into the future, hurricane-driven storm surges will boost overall property losses by approximately 8 per cent above the current annual average of $10.4 billion.
By also assuming that future North Atlantic and Caribbean sea-surface temperatures are warmer than the recent average, a scenario that historically has been associated with greater hurricane activity, Hoffman and colleagues estimated that annual average storm-surge damage could swell by about 19 per cent.
The study doesn't consider potential increases in population or property values along those coasts over the coming decades, so actual losses could be higher, the researchers speculate.
References
Hoffman, R. N. et al. An estimate of increases in storm surge risk to property from sea level rise in the first half of the twenty-first century. Weather Clim. Soc. 10.1175/2010WCAS1050.1 (2010).
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Perkins, S. Costly storm surges. Nature Clim Change (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1020
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1020
