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The impact of climate change on hurricane damages in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Mendelsohn, Robert
  • Emanuel, Kerry
  • Chonabayashi, Shun

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Mendelsohn, Robert & Emanuel, Kerry & Chonabayashi, Shun, 2011. "The impact of climate change on hurricane damages in the United States," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5561, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5561
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Hurrican damage and climate change
      by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2011-12-02 21:20:00

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    Cited by:

    1. Ranson, Matthew & Tarquinio, Lisa & Lew, Audrey, 2016. "Modeling the Impact of Climate Change on Extreme Weather Losses," National Center for Environmental Economics-NCEE Working Papers 280932, United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
    2. Kousky, Carolyn, 2012. "Informing Climate Adaptation: A Review of the Economic Costs of Natural Disasters, Their Determinants, and Risk Reduction Options," RFF Working Paper Series dp-12-28, Resources for the Future.
    3. Kaori Tembata & Kenji Takeuchi, 2019. "Floods and Exports: An Empirical Study on Natural Disaster Shocks in Southeast Asia," Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 39-60, April.
    4. Dinan, Terry, 2017. "Projected Increases in Hurricane Damage in the United States: The Role of Climate Change and Coastal Development," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 186-198.
    5. Matthew Ranson & Carolyn Kousky & Matthias Ruth & Lesley Jantarasami & Allison Crimmins & Lisa Tarquinio, 2014. "Tropical and extratropical cyclone damages under climate change," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 127(2), pages 227-241, November.
    6. Kousky, Carolyn, 2014. "Informing climate adaptation: A review of the economic costs of natural disasters," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 576-592.
    7. Matthieu Chavaz, 2016. "Dis-integrating credit markets: diversification, securitization, and lending in a recovery," Bank of England Staff Working Paper series 617, Bank of England.
    8. Pablo Garcia Sanchez, 2022. "Introduction to weather extremes and monetary policy," BCL working papers 163, Central Bank of Luxembourg.
    9. Melissa Dell & Benjamin F. Jones & Benjamin A. Olken, 2014. "What Do We Learn from the Weather? The New Climate-Economy Literature," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(3), pages 740-798, September.
    10. Shah, Syed Sadaqat Ali & Wu, Kai, 2025. "How effective are green spending multipliers? Eco-friendly vs non-eco-friendly spending in OECD economies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).

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