Hurricanes and power outage risk in a changing climate

What is it about?

Hurricanes regularly cause wide-spread power outages in the US, leading to large economic impacts, health effects, and inconvenience. This paper shows how hurricane power outage risk may change in a 3C warmer climate as well as explores differences in which areas and which groups of people will be disproportionately higher outage risk and costs.

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Why is it important?

This paper shows that different parts of the US face different outage risks moving forward. This can help government agencies, utilities, businesses, and home owners in the most at-risk areas better prepare for widespread, prolonged outage events. Many of these areas are places that have not historically seen high outage rates due to hurricanes. Climate change is projected to lead to changes in both the locations and intensities of outage events.

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