Objective
This project plans to provide comprehensive, quantitative estimates of tropical cyclone-related risks from wind and flooding for up to 14 Department of Defense (DoD) installations for both current and future projected climates and sea levels. These risk estimates will be for return periods long enough (typically hundreds of years) for DoD installation engineers to make robust estimates of average annual loss. The quantitative weather hazard risk data will be transferred to installation planners and engineers assessing coastal risks to existing facilities or making future infrastructure investment decisions. The structured set of data products will be custom tailored to each installation’s needs and will include training in the use, access, and interpretation of the advanced climate, wind, and flood risk products.
Technology Description
The team’s recently developed technique for storm climatology coastal risk assessment quantifies tropical cyclone risks for any geographic region on the globe and for any given climate state. Theis includes risks from direct wind, storm surge-driven flooding, heavy rainfall-induced riverine flooding, and compound flooding from both coastal and inland sources. These methods offer a large improvement over other weather risk assessments, which are based almost exclusively on historical data records which, in the case of hurricanes, are too short to capture the most damaging events and do not account for projected climate change. Because the downscaling technique is based on physical (as opposed to statistical) models, it can be applied in any climate. Project success will be achieved through a structured process of identifying climate hazard data needs at each selected installation; modeling and generation of a wide range of data products to characterize these risks; provision of software to allow better access to the data for use by planners and engineers; and a training program to transfer these knowledge products for the most effective application by DoD.
Benefits
In planning for climate change resilience, there are two broad kinds of regrets that can arise. For example, one can be under-prepared and incur very large costs when highly damaging events occur and regret not having better prepared for the risk. Conversely, one can over-prepare, spending large sums of money on resilience investments that later prove to have been unnecessary. The best-informed approach to an optimum level of preparedness can only come from the very best weather hazard risk estimates, appropriately characterized across as many known dimensions of variability and forecasting uncertainty using current best information. The products of this project will provide the best available forecasting to inform risk assessments. With respect to site-specific tropical cyclone-related risks, the team’s technique provides the best possible climate hazard information to help DoD prepare for disaster and avoid regret. Specifically, the data products can provide detailed information on the magnitude and spatial patterns of these climate hazards, so installation planners can make best use of advance warning to build protective barriers, move sensitive and vulnerable assets out of harm’s way, or both.