Maximum wind speeds and US hurricane losses
There is academic, commercial, and public interest in estimating loss from hurricanes striking land and understanding how loss might change as a result of future variations in climate. Here we show that the relationship between wind speed and loss is exponential and that loss increases with wind spe...
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Published in | Geophysical research letters Vol. 39; no. 16 |
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Main Authors | , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Washington, DC
Blackwell Publishing Ltd
28.08.2012
American Geophysical Union |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | There is academic, commercial, and public interest in estimating loss from hurricanes striking land and understanding how loss might change as a result of future variations in climate. Here we show that the relationship between wind speed and loss is exponential and that loss increases with wind speed at a rate of 5% per m s−1. The relationship is derived using quantile regression and a data set comprising wind speeds of hurricanes hitting the United States and normalized economic losses. We suggest that the “centercepts” for the different quantiles account for exposure‐related factors such as population density, precipitation, and surface roughness, and that once these effects are accounted for, the increase in loss with wind speed is consistent across quantiles. An out‐of‐sample test of this relationship correctly predicts economic losses from Hurricane Irene in 2011. The exponential relationship suggests that increased wind speeds will produce significantly higher losses; however, increases in exposed property and population are expected to be a more important factor for near future losses.
Key Points
There's an exponential relationship between wind speed at landfall and loss
Loss increases at a rate of 5%/m/s increase in wind speed at landfall
Loss from a US hurricane can be estimated from maximum wind speed at landfall |
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Bibliography: | Tab-delimited Table 1.Tab-delimited Table 2.Tab-delimited Table 3. ark:/67375/WNG-HWMDK2L2-5 istex:67B53A02414CE488C84547A7DC7E4BE6FE2DA2EA ArticleID:2012GL052740 |
ISSN: | 0094-8276 1944-8007 |
DOI: | 10.1029/2012GL052740 |