IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcli/v6y2016i1d10.1038_nclimate2777.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Grey swan tropical cyclones

Author

Listed:
  • Ning Lin

    (Princeton University)

  • Kerry Emanuel

    (Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Abstract

We define ‘grey swan’ tropical cyclones as high-impact storms that would not be predicted based on history but may be foreseeable using physical knowledge together with historical data. Here we apply a climatological–hydrodynamic method to estimate grey swan tropical cyclone storm surge threat for three highly vulnerable coastal regions. We identify a potentially large risk in the Persian Gulf, where tropical cyclones have never been recorded, and larger-than-expected threats in Cairns, Australia, and Tampa, Florida. Grey swan tropical cyclones striking Tampa, Cairns and Dubai can generate storm surges of about 6 m, 5.7 m and 4 m, respectively, with estimated annual exceedance probabilities of about 1/10,000. With climate change, these probabilities can increase significantly over the twenty-first century (to 1/3,100–1/1,100 in the middle and 1/2,500–1/700 towards the end of the century for Tampa). Worse grey swan tropical cyclones, inducing surges exceeding 11 m in Tampa and 7 m in Dubai, are also revealed with non-negligible probabilities, especially towards the end of the century.

Suggested Citation

  • Ning Lin & Kerry Emanuel, 2016. "Grey swan tropical cyclones," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 6(1), pages 106-111, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcli:v:6:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1038_nclimate2777
    DOI: 10.1038/nclimate2777
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2777
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nclimate2777?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Susana Lincoln & Paul Buckley & Ella L. Howes & Katherine M. Maltby & John K. Pinnegar & Thamer S. Ali & Yousef Alosairi & Alanoud Al-Ragum & Alastair Baglee & Chiden Oseo Balmes & Radhouane Ben Hamad, 2021. "A Regional Review of Marine and Coastal Impacts of Climate Change on the ROPME Sea Area," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-34, December.
    2. Annette Grilli & Malcolm L. Spaulding & Bryan A. Oakley & Chris Damon, 2017. "Mapping the coastal risk for the next century, including sea level rise and changes in the coastline: application to Charlestown RI, USA," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 88(1), pages 389-414, August.
    3. Wing Shan Kan & Raul P. Lejano, 2021. "How Land Use, Climate Change, and an Ageing Demographic Intersect to Create New Vulnerabilities in Hong Kong," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-8, April.
    4. Christian M. Appendini & Rafael Meza-Padilla & Said Abud-Russell & Sébastien Proust & Roberto E. Barrios & Fernando Secaira-Fajardo, 2019. "Effect of climate change over landfalling hurricanes at the Yucatan Peninsula," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 157(3), pages 469-482, December.
    5. Thomas R. Mortlock & Jonathan Nott & Ryan Crompton & Valentina Koschatzky, 2023. "A long-term view of tropical cyclone risk in Australia," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 118(1), pages 571-588, August.
    6. Glette-Iversen, Ingrid & Aven, Terje, 2021. "On the meaning of and relationship between dragon-kings, black swans and related concepts," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 211(C).
    7. Kai Parker & Li Erikson & Jennifer Thomas & Kees Nederhoff & Patrick Barnard & Sanne Muis, 2023. "Relative contributions of water-level components to extreme water levels along the US Southeast Atlantic Coast from a regional-scale water-level hindcast," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 117(3), pages 2219-2248, July.
    8. Zheng, Zhonghua & Zhao, Lei & Oleson, Keith W., 2020. "Large model parameter and structural uncertainties in global projections of urban heat waves," Earth Arxiv f5pwa, Center for Open Science.
    9. Kees Nederhoff & Tim W. B. Leijnse & Kai Parker & Jennifer Thomas & Andrea O’Neill & Maarten Ormondt & Robert McCall & Li Erikson & Patrick L. Barnard & Amy Foxgrover & Wouter Klessens & Norberto C. N, 2024. "Tropical or extratropical cyclones: what drives the compound flood hazard, impact, and risk for the United States Southeast Atlantic coast?," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 120(9), pages 8779-8825, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcli:v:6:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1038_nclimate2777. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.