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April 12, 2007
New Peer-Reviewed Publication on the Benefits of Emissions Reductions for Future Tropical Cyclone (Hurricane) Losses Around the World
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters | Energy Policy
I have a paper accepted for publication that projects into the future a range of possible scenarios for increasing losses related to tropical cyclones around the world.
Pielke, Jr., R. A. (accepted, 2007). Future Economic Damage from Tropical Cyclones: Sensitivities to Societal and Climate Changes, Proceedings of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. (PDF)
The factors that comprise the different scenarios include changes in population, per capita wealth, tropical cyclone intensity, and also damage functions as a function of intensity. [Note: Tropical cyclone frequency is not included as scientists presently do not expect frequencies to increase. However, even if frequencies do increase it is possible in the scenarios to equate the effects of frequency in terms of intensity, as discussed in the paper.] The goal of the paper is to delineate a scenarios space as a function of permutations in these variables in order to assess the robustness of mitigation and adaptation responses to future losses. Here is the abstract:
This paper examines future economic damages from tropical cyclones under a range of assumptions about societal change, climate change, and the relationship of climate change to damage in 2050. It finds in all cases that efforts to reduce vulnerability to losses, often called climate adaptation, have far greater potential effectiveness to reduce damage related to tropical cyclones than efforts to modulate the behavior of storms through greenhouse gas emissions reduction policies, typically called climate mitigation and achieved through energy policies. The paper urges caution in using economic losses of tropical cyclones as justification for action on energy policies when far more potentially effective options are available.
Nothing new here for regular Prometheus readers, but now this analysis has been formalized and has gone through peer review. Here are the paper’s conclusions:
This paper finds that under a wide range of assumptions about future growth in wealth and population, and about the effects of human-caused climate change, in every case there is far greater potential to affect future losses by focusing attention on the societal conditions that generate vulnerability to losses. Efforts to modulate tropical cyclone intensities through climate stabilization policies have extremely limited potential to reduce future losses. This conclusion is robust across assumptions, even unrealistic assumptions about the timing and magnitude of emissions reductions policies on tropical cyclone behavior. The importance of the societal factors increases with the time horizon.This does not mean that climate stabilization policies do not make sense or that policy makers should ignore influences of human-caused climate change on tropical cyclone behavior. It does mean that efforts to justify emissions reductions based on future tropical cyclone damages are misleading at best, given that available alternatives have far greater potential to achieve reductions in damage. The most effective policies in the face of tropical cyclones have been and will continue to be adaptive in nature, and thus should play a prominent role in any comprehensive approach to climate policy.
Posted on April 12, 2007 01:24 PM
Comments
When I spotted this paper, I thought of you, Roger: http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2007GL029683.shtml
A quick look at Jim Kossin's home page shows that he & Vimont are doing some interesting work on cyclones at the moment (along with many others). My question is about timescales: I probably agree with you that mitigative policies are extremely unlikely to have any impact on tropical cyclone intensity in the short to medium-term, but isn't this in a sense self-evident? Adaptation is the way to go where social structures and economics allow. But the purpose of mitigation has always been a long-term reduction of possible problems down-the-line. If the scenario of intensity increasing with SST over time proves to be correct, does this not require that we both adapt and mitigate? I hope my thoughts/questions are clear.
Regards,
Posted by: fergus brown at April 13, 2007 10:45 AM
Fergus- Thanks for your comment. I have long argued that we need to both adapt and mitigate, and that they are not tradeoffs with one another. As far as hurricanes, they are not by themselves a strong reason for mitigation. I can make a strong case for mitigation saying nothing about hurricanes, and including hurricanes does not add appreciably to that case. Therefore, I believe that hurricanes simply should not enter into mitigation discussions. It is unnecessary, especially given that the overwhelming evidence is that adaptive policies will make the most sense in that context for the short and long terms. Thanks!
Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr. ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/nav-commenters.gif)
at April 13, 2007 11:45 AM
Roger, I agree with most of everything you have said here, but a couple of points niggle: you refer to the relationship between climate change and damage up to 2050. Later you say:'...The importance of the societal factors increases with the time horizon...'
Does this time horizon also go up to 2050, or beyond?
The argument I am supposing is that, by framing your analysis in terms of the next forty years or so, you are leaving out the whole bag of 'possible' climate changes beyond this time frame which are the real target of mitigation strategies. This does not mean that I think you don't think mitigation is important, only, within the context of your analysis, it does not allow for a realistic measure of the potential effects of mitigation, as these would only be seen in the time frame following 2050 and up to or beyond 2200.
Obviously, any work in this area involves many uncertainties, not least about the reliability of model-based effects projections, but would your paper not have covered the 'whole picture' better if you at least considered the longer time frame?
Respectfully,
Posted by: fergus brown at April 13, 2007 02:03 PM
Fergus- Thanks for the follow up ... a few replies:
When I say that the importance of the societal factors increases with time horizon, this means that as we look out to 2100, using the same approach as used in the paper, the social factors are even more overwhelmingly dominant. Think of it this way ... if losses due to societal changes alone roughly double every decade, then over 100 years this increase is 2^10 or an increase of 1024x, taking the 2100 increase in intensity (as described in the paper) in the paper of 36% and damage function of the 9th power (i.e., the most extreme values) gives a result of 1.36^9 = ~16. This makes the societal factors 64 times more important than the climate factors. Assume for fun a 400% increase in frequency, and the ratio is still 16:1. So I don't think that the longer time horizon actually changes the analysis one bit, and in fact underscores the conclusions of the paper. Does this make sense?
Thanks!
Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr. at April 13, 2007 09:07 PM
Roger. Yep, that's clear. The point of mitigation is nothing to do with repeat performances of 'Katrina'. I think I agree completely. This is basically a response to the hysteria following that tragic event which sought to divert attention away from certain failures (in adaptation, for example) by passing responsibility on to 'greater forces', Is this right?
I have said before that i feel that more emphasis has been placed on cyclones in the US since that time than elsewhere. I wonder whether this is because such events are the most visible manifestations of 'climate' and such tragedies the most heavily reported in the media.
Regards,
Posted by: fergus brown at April 14, 2007 04:52 PM