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1. 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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2. 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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3. 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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4. Increasing Flood Hazard Posed by Tropical Cyclone Rapid Intensification in a Changing Climate

   https://doi.org/10.1029/2023GL105624  

   Lockwood, Joseph W.; Lin, Ning; Gori, Avantika; Oppenheimer, Michael (February 2024, Geophysical Research Letters)

   Abstract Tropical cyclones (TCs) that undergo rapid intensification (RI) before landfall are notoriously difficult to predict and have caused tremendous damage to coastal regions in the United States. Using downscaled synthetic TCs and physics‐based models for storm tide and rain, we investigate the hazards posed by TCs that rapidly intensify before landfall under both historical and future mid‐emissions climate scenarios. In the downscaled synthetic data, the percentage of TCs experiencing RI is estimated to rise across a significant portion of the North Atlantic basin. Notably, future climate warming causes large increases in the probability of RI within 24 hr of landfall. Also, our analysis shows that RI events induce notably higher rainfall hazard levels than non‐RI events with equivalent TC intensities. As a result, RI events dominate increases in 100‐year rainfall and storm tide levels under climate change for most of the US coastline. 

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5. Increasing sequential tropical cyclone hazards along the US East and Gulf coasts

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01595-7  

   Xi, Dazhi; Lin, Ning; Gori, Avantika (February 2023, Nature Climate Change)

   Abstract Two tropical cyclones (TCs) that make landfall close together can induce sequential hazards to coastal areas. Here we investigate the change in sequential TC hazards in the historical and future projected climates. We find that the chance of sequential TC hazards has been increasing over the past several decades at many US locations. Under the high (moderate) emission scenario, the chance of hazards from two TCs impacting the same location within 15 days may substantially increase, with the return period decreasing over the century from 10–92 years to ~1–2 (1–3) years along the US East and Gulf coasts, due to sea-level rise and storm climatology change. Climate change can also cause unprecedented compounding of extreme hazards at the regional level. A Katrina-like TC and a Harvey-like TC impacting the United States within 15 days of each other, which is non-existent in the control simulation for over 1,000 years, is projected to have an annual occurrence probability of more than 1% by the end of the century under the high emission scenario. 

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