Modeling the Temporal Correlation in Hurricane Frequency for Damage Assessment of Residential Structures Subjected to Climate Change.

Severe hurricanes in coastal areas have caused enormous human and economic losses. Furthermore, the intensity and frequency of future hurricanes may increase due to the potential impact of climate change. Due to common underlying climatological causes, interrelations may exist between successive hurricane events. This paper proposes a novel approach for modeling the temporal correlation in hurricane frequency and develops an analytical method that reflects this correlation to estimate the statistical properties of cumulative hurricane damage. The method provides a closed-form solution to the mean and variance of hurricane damage, and can be used to assess the impacts of temporal correlation and nonstationarity in hurricane events quantitatively. The applicability of the method is demonstrated through a case study of Miami-Dade County, Florida, in which it is found that the nonstationarity in hurricane events increases the mean value of hurricane damage over a future period of 100 years, while the temporal correlation increases its variance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]