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1. Tropical cyclone climatology change greatly exacerbates US extreme rainfall–surge hazard

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01272-7  

   Gori, Avantika; Lin, Ning; Xi, Dazhi; Emanuel, Kerry (February 2022, Nature Climate Change)

   Abstract Tropical cyclones (TCs) are drivers of extreme rainfall and surge, but the current and future TC rainfall–surge joint hazard has not been well quantified. Using a physics-based approach to simulate TC rainfall and storm tides, we show drastic increases in the joint hazard from historical to projected future (SSP5–8.5) conditions. The frequency of joint extreme events (exceeding both hazards’ historical 100-year levels) may increase by 7–36-fold in the southern US and 30–195-fold in the Northeast by 2100. This increase in joint hazard is induced by sea-level rise and TC climatology change; the relative contribution of TC climatology change is higher than that of sea-level rise for 96% of the coast, largely due to rainfall increases. Increasing storm intensity and decreasing translation speed are the main TC change factors that cause higher rainfall and storm tides and up to 25% increase in their dependence. 

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2. Projecting Compound Flood Hazard Under Climate Change With Physical Models and Joint Probability Methods

   https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EF003097  

   Gori, Avantika; Lin, Ning (December 2022, Earth's Future)

   Abstract Accurate delineation of compound flood hazard requires joint simulation of rainfall‐runoff and storm surges within high‐resolution flood models, which may be computationally expensive. There is a need for supplementing physical models with efficient, probabilistic methodologies for compound flood hazard assessment that can be applied under a range of climate and environment conditions. Here we propose an extension to the joint probability optimal sampling method (JPM‐OS), which has been widely used for storm surge assessment, and apply it for rainfall‐surge compound hazard assessment under climate change at the catchment‐scale. We utilize thousands of synthetic tropical cyclones (TCs) and physics‐based models to characterize storm surge and rainfall hazards at the coast. Then we implement a Bayesian quadrature optimization approach (JPM‐OS‐BQ) to select a small number (∼100) of storms, which are simulated within a high‐resolution flood model to characterize the compound flood hazard. We show that the limited JPM‐OS‐BQ simulations can capture historical flood return levels within 0.25 m compared to a high‐fidelity Monte Carlo approach. We find that the combined impact of 2100 sea‐level rise (SLR) and TC climatology changes on flood hazard change in the Cape Fear Estuary, NC will increase the 100‐year flood extent by 27% and increase inundation volume by 62%. Moreover, we show that probabilistic incorporation of SLR in the JPM‐OS‐BQ framework leads to different 100‐year flood maps compared to using a single mean SLR projection. Our framework can be applied to catchments across the United States Atlantic and Gulf coasts under a variety of climate and environment scenarios. 

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3. Sensitivity of tropical cyclone risk across the US to changes in storm climatology and socioeconomic growth

   https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/add60d  

   Gori, Avantika; Lin, Ning; Chavas, Daniel_R; Oppenheimer, Michael; Xian, Siyuan (May 2025, Environmental Research Letters)

   Abstract Tropical cyclone (TC) hazards coupled with dense urban development along the coastline have resulted in trillions in US damages over the past several decades, with an increasing trend in losses in recent years. So far, this trend has been driven by increasing coastal development. However, as the climate continues to warm, changing TC climatology may also cause large changes in coastal damages in the future. Approaches to quantifying regional TC risk typically focus on total storm damage. However, it is crucial to understand the spatial footprint of TC damage and ultimately the spatial distribution of TC risk. Here, we quantify the magnitude and spatial pattern of TC risk (in expected annual damage) across the US from wind, storm surge, and rainfall using synthetic TCs, physics-based hazard models, and a county-level statistical damage model trained on historical TC data. We then combine end-of-century TC hazard simulations with US population growth and wealth increase scenarios (under the SSP2 4.5 emission scenario) to investigate the sensitivity of changes in TC risk across the US Atlantic and Gulf coasts. We find that not directly accounting for the effects of rainfall and storm surge results in much lower risk estimates and smaller future increases in risk. TC climatology change and socioeconomic change drive similar magnitude increases in total expected annual damage across the US (roughly 160%), and that their combined effect (633% increase) is much higher. 

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4. Correlation Between Sea‐Level Rise and Aspects of Future Tropical Cyclone Activity in CMIP6 Models

   https://doi.org/10.1029/2021EF002462  

   Lockwood, Joseph W.; Oppenheimer, Michael; Lin, Ning; Kopp, Robert E.; Vecchi, Gabriel A.; Gori, Avantika (April 2022, Earth's Future)

   Abstract Future coastal flood hazard at many locations will be impacted by both tropical cyclone (TC) change and relative sea‐level rise (SLR). Despite sea level and TC activity being influenced by common thermodynamic and dynamic climate variables, their future changes are generally considered independently. Here, we investigate correlations between SLR and TC change derived from simulations of 26 Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 models. We first explore correlations between SLR and TC activity by inference from two large‐scale factors known to modulate TC activity: potential intensity (PI) and vertical wind shear. Under the high emissions SSP5‐8.5, SLR is strongly correlated with PI change (positively) and vertical wind shear change (negatively) over much of the western North Atlantic and North West Pacific, with global mean surface air temperature (GSAT) modulating the co‐variability. To explore the impact of the joint changes on flood hazard, we conduct climatological–hydrodynamic modeling at five sites along the US East and Gulf Coasts. Positive correlations between SLR and TC change alter flood hazard projections, particularly at Wilmington, Charleston and New Orleans. For example, if positive correlations between SLR and TC changes are ignored in estimating flood hazard at Wilmington, the average projected change to the historical 100 years storm tide event is under‐estimated by 12%. Our results suggest that flood hazard assessments that neglect the joint influence of these factors and that do not reflect the full distribution of GSAT change may not accurately represent future flood hazard. 

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5. Assessing Future Coastal Flood Hazards From Tropical Cyclones in the Northeastern United States

   https://doi.org/10.1029/2025EF006063  

   Begmohammadi, Amirhosein; Lin, Ning; Xi, Dazhi; Blackshaw, Christine (November 2025, Earth's Future)

   Coastal flooding from tropical cyclone (TC)‐induced storm surges is among the most devastating natural hazards in the US. Accurately quantifying storm surge hazards is crucial for risk mitigation and climate adaptation. In this study, we conduct climatology‐hydrodynamic modeling to estimate TC surge hazards along the US northeast coastline under future climate scenarios. In this methodology, we generate synthetic TCs for the northeastern US to drive a hydrodynamic model (ADCIRC) to simulate storm surges. Observing their significant effect on storm surge, for the first time, we bias‐correct landfall angles of synthetic TCs, in addition to bias‐correcting their frequency and intensity. Our findings show that under the combined effects of sea level rise (SLR) and TC climatology change, historical 100‐year extreme water levels (EWLs) along the US northeast coastline would occur annually at the end of the century in both SSP2‐4.5 and SSP5‐8.5 emissions scenarios. 500‐year EWLs are also projected to occur every 1–60 (1–20) years under SSP2‐4.5 (SSP5‐8.5). SLR is the dominant factor in the dramatic changes in the EWLs. However, while in higher latitudes () TC climatology change modestly affect EWLs ( contribution for 100‐year and for 500‐year EWL changes), in lower latitudes the impact is more significant (up to 40% contribution to 100‐year and 55% for 500‐year EWL changes). Extending previous methods, the physics‐based probabilistic framework presented here can be applied to project future coastal flood hazards under the effects of SLR and storm climatology change for any TC‐prone region. 

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