I made a comment on this, but it got wiped out, and I’m just now getting around to trying to regenerate it.

The main thing I wanted to do was to congratulate you and your co-authors on a terrific paper. It’s a shame society wastes so much thinking (if it can be called that) on questions like whether global warming is increasing hurricane strength, and then misses what, to me, is the bottom-line message of this paper:

If the U.S. were to experience an exact replay of the 20th century storms, but with 2005 levels of development, population, and wealth, the *average* annual cost of hurricane damage would be $10 billion.

In that light, the cost of hurricane Katrina (~$100 billion?) isn’t so spectacular. We in the U.S. should expect to average at least $100 billion per decade for the next couple of decades.

In fact, another good thing to do would be to project costs to 2030 or 2050, based on historical trends. I don’t know what the exact number is, but let’s say for simplicity sake that they increase by 7% per year, adjusted for inflation. That means they double every 10 years. So in 2015 we could expect $20 billion per year, and in 2025, $40 billion per year. Those are some huge numbers. And I expect that hardly anyone–especially those in positions of power in government–has thought about that.

Which brings me back to the concept of a hurricane storm surge protection system. It’s really a terrific idea.

Here’s an opening statement about a hurricane storm surge protection system on my blog:

http://markbahner.typepad.com/random_thoughts/2008/01/the-us-should-b.html