Activity Number:
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284
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Type:
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Invited
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Date/Time:
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Tuesday, August 2, 2016 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
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Sponsor:
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SSC
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Abstract #318244
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View Presentation
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Title:
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U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters: Data Sources, Methods, Biases, and Uncertainty
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Author(s):
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Adam B. Smith*
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Companies:
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NOAA/NCEI
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Keywords:
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natural disasters ;
uncertainty ;
loss data ;
disaster costs ;
statistics of extreme events
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Abstract:
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Research developing cost models to better quantify natural disaster impacts is a growing field of study. Recent analysis (Smith and Katz 2013) on the data sources, trends and potential biases within the U.S. Billion-dollar weather and climate disaster report by NOAA found a consistent underestimation bias of 10-15%, which was corrected through an improved cost factorization model and data reanalysis (NCEI 2015). However, there are few natural disaster cost studies that quantify uncertainty and establish confidence intervals surrounding natural disaster cost estimates (ex-post). One method to frame the data limitations associated with natural disaster loss estimates is to conduct multiple analyses by varying certain input parameters to which the losses are most sensitive. Research by (Smith and Matthews 2015) used this approach via Monte Carlo simulations to quantify 95%, 90% and 75% confidence intervals for several U.S. natural disasters. This research found the reanalyzed U.S. Billion-dollar disaster loss estimates were within the confidence limits and near the mean and median of the example simulations.
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Authors who are presenting talks have a * after their name.
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