Fatalities of neglect: adapt to more intense hurricanes under global warming?

This article examines whether the humanity can adapt to more intense hurricanes that would result from global warming. From the Australian cyclone reports in the past four decades, we find that the lower the income, the larger the number of fatalities from a hurricane. Negative binomial regressions show that the proportional change in fatality in response to one millibar increase in hurricane intensity is +5.7% while the proportional change in fatality in response to a one thousand dollar increase in income per capita is -4.8%. Further, choice models reveal that adaptation measures such as a hurricane trajectory projection and evacuation orders were adopted more often when a hurricane approached a high-income urban region. This article finds that a large number of TC fatalities are largely due to neglecting low income regions such as those destroyed by Typhoon Haiyan. A well-designed adaptation policy will play a critical role in reducing the number of fatalities from hurricanes under future global warming.