Economic damages from Hurricane Sandy attributable to sea level rise caused by anthropogenic climate change

Benjamin H Strauss,Daniel M Gilford,Philip M Orton,Sergey Vinogradov,Chris Massey,Robert E Kopp,Scott Kulp,Maya K Buchanan,Klaus Bittermann,Hans De Moel

doi:10.1038/s41467-021-22838-1

Abstract

In 2012, Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast of the United States, creating widespread coastal flooding and over $60 billion in reported economic damage. The potential influence of climate change on the storm itself has been debated, but sea level rise driven by anthropogenic climate change more clearly contributed to damages. To quantify this effect, here we simulate water levels and damage both as they occurred and as they would have occurred across a range of lower sea levels corresponding to different estimates of attributable sea level rise. We find that approximately $8.1B ($4.7B–$14.0B, 5th–95th percentiles) of Sandy’s damages are attributable to climate-mediated anthropogenic sea level rise, as is extension of the flood area to affect 71 (40–131) thousand additional people. The same general approach demonstrated here may be applied to impact assessments for other past and future coastal storms.

Highlights

In 2012, Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast of the United States, creating widespread coastal flooding and over $60 billion in reported economic damage
Robust estimates for attributable sea level rise comprise a critical element of this analysis
Confidence comes from the consistent match between observations and budgeted/modeled total global mean sea level rise under the different approaches

Summary

Introduction

In 2012, Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast of the United States, creating widespread coastal flooding and over $60 billion in reported economic damage. The potential influence of climate change on the storm itself has been debated, but sea level rise driven by anthropogenic climate change more clearly contributed to damages. The flood impacts of all cyclonic coastal storms are amplified by a worsening factor that is quantitatively attributable to climate change: the anthropogenic component of sea level rise[4,5]. To our knowledge, isolates the effect of the climate-mediated human contribution to sea level rise from other factors such as natural variability and local vertical land motion This human contribution can worsen damages, relative to what they would have been without it, regardless of how nonhuman factors influence total local relative sea level change prior to any chosen event. We exclude from ASLR the effects of other components of sea level change, such as a net change in land-water storage (LWS) through groundwater extraction and surface water impoundment behind dams (which are anthropogenic but not caused by climate change), and such as local land subsidence (which may be anthropogenic but, when so, unrelated to climate change)

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