A0377
Title: On the ability to adapt to changes: An assessment of hurricane damage mitigation efforts using forecast uncertainty
Authors: Andrew Martinez - US Department of the Treasury (United States) [presenting]
Abstract: Humanity's ability to adapt to extreme weather events is increasingly relevant due to climate volatility. Given the uncertainty associated with climate outcomes, it is important to understand the effectiveness of adaptation across various horizons. However, there is little analysis of the effectiveness of short-term adaptation efforts. We propose a novel approach of using errors from hurricane forecasts to evaluate hurricane damage mitigation efforts in the short-term. We construct a general model of hurricane damages for all hurricanes to strike the continental United States in the past 60 years. While we allow for both existing explanations of hurricane impacts as well as additional determinants, we find that a small subset explains most of the variation in hurricane damages. This result is broadly robust to outliers and shifts.
