Simulation of tropical cyclone impacts to the U.S. power system under climate change scenarios Andrea Staid & Seth D. Guikema & Roshanak Nateghi & Steven M. Quiring & Michael Z. Gao Received: 8 May 2014 /Accepted: 29 September 2014 /Published online: 15 October 2014 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014 Abstract The links between climate change and tropical cyclone behavior are frequently studied but still uncertain. This uncertainty makes planning for climate change a difficult task. Here we focus on one area of climate-related risk: the impact of tropical cyclones on United States power systems, and we evaluate this risk through the simulation of impacts to the power system under 12 plausible scenarios in which climate change may affect tropical cyclone intensity, frequency, and location. We use a sensitivity analysis based approached grounded in the literature rather than directly simulating from specific GCM output due to the high degree of uncertainty in both the climate models and the climate-hurricane relationship. We show how changes in tropical cyclone activity influence extreme wind speeds, probability of power outages, and the proportion of people without power. While climate change and its impacts are often discussed globally, this work provides information at a much more local scale. The sensitivity of an individual area can be assessed, and the information presented here can be incorporated into planning and mitigation strategies for power systems faced with an uncertain future in a changing climate. 1 Introduction Tropical cyclones, and hurricanes in particular, have been the cause of extensive damage and financial loss in many regions of the United States. They rank among the most destructive natural hazards for coastal areas (Huang et al. 2001; Pielke Jr et al. 2005; Vickery et al. 2009). Hurricane Sandy, for example, left more than 8 million customers without power, resulting in estimated costs of $65 billion (Zamuda et al. 2013). Power outages caused by tropical cyclones Climatic Change (2014) 127:535–546 DOI 10.1007/s10584-014-1272-3 Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10584-014-1272-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. A. Staid (*) : S. D. Guikema : R. Nateghi : M. Z. Gao Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA e-mail: staid@jhu.edu S. M. Quiring Department of Geography, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA R. Nateghi Resources For the Future, Washington, DC, USA