Tropical Cyclone Hazards and Risk in a Changing Climate

Ning Lin, PhD

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Princeton University

Friday, October 18, 2024 | 11:00 a.m. | 140 Ketter Hall

Tropical cyclones (TCs) cause much damage and loss of life worldwide. The impacts of TCs may worsen in the coming decades due to rapid coastal development coupled with sea-level rise and possibly increasing TC activity due to climate change. Here we discuss about TC hazard projection and risk management in a holistic modeling framework. First, we introduce probabilistic TC models that can be used to generate large numbers of synthetic storms with physically correlated characteristics under projected climate conditions. Second, we discuss about TC wind, rainfall, and surge hazard modeling, and the coupling with the TC models to estimate individual and compound hazard probabilities in a changing climate. Then, we discuss about infrastructure vulnerability modeling, and the coupling with the TC hazard projection to estimate future TC risk and develop risk management strategies. We focus on two examples, namely, TC-blackout-heatwave compound risk and adaptive coastal protection.

Ning Lin is a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Princeton University, where she has affiliate appointments with Princeton School for Public and International Affairs, Andlinger Center for Energy and Environment, High Meadows Environmental Institute, and Department of Geosciences. Lin’s research areas include Natural Hazards and Risk Analysis, Wind Engineering, Coastal Engineering, and Climate Change Impact and Adaptation. Her current primary focus is hurricane risk analysis. She integrates science, engineering, and policy to study hurricane-related weather extremes (strong winds, heavy rainfall, and storm surges, and compounding sea level rise and heatwaves), how they change with changing climate, and how their impact on society can be better mitigated.

Lin has published in high-impact journals including Science, Nature Climate Change, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. She is a recipient of the CAREER award from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Natural Hazards Early Career Award and Global Environmental Change Early Career Award from the American Geophysical Union, the Huber Research Prize from the American Society of Civil Engineers, and The Walter Orr Roberts Lectureship by the American Meteorological Society (“for pioneering physics-based weather risk analysis by integrating state-of-the-art weather and risk modeling to understand hurricane hazards under climate change”).

Lin has been the lead PI or Co-PI for several large NSF projects, including Interdisciplinary Research in Hazards and Disasters (Hazards SEES), Prediction of and Resilience against Extreme Events (PREEVENTS), and Coastlines and People Hubs for Research and Broadening Participation (CoPe). Lin received her Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Princeton University in 2010. She also received a certificate in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy in 2010 from Princeton. Before rejoining Princeton as an assistant professor in 2012, she conducted research in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT as a NOAA Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellow.