Hurricane Ida: Wind & Storm Surge Attribution Analysis

Research
Extreme event attribution analysis of wind and storm surge damage during Ida in southern Louisiana.



Overview

This interdisciplinary project with LSU, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and The Water Institute examined Hurricane Ida’s impacts under changing climate conditions.

My role was to integrate modeled wind and storm-surge damage estimates with demographic data and to analyze the distribution of climate change attributable impacts across different populations and communities.

My Role & Contributions

  • Data Integration: Combined modeled damage estimates under factual and counterfactual climate scenarios to examine the contribution of climate change to Hurricane Ida’s impacts.

  • Data Visualization: Developed statistical summaries, figures, and maps to characterize the spatial distribution of damages and communicate patterns of exposure and inequality.

  • Socioeconomic Disparities: Analyzed variation in climate change-attributable damages across communities with different socioeconomic and demographic characteristics.

Data

Modeled Wind & Storm Surge Damages • U.S. Census & ACS Demographics

Research Significance

By connecting physical climate attribution modeling with social and demographic data, this research contributes to understanding not only how climate change intensifies disaster impacts, but also how those additional damages are distributed across communities.

The findings can inform discussions of climate-related inequality, disaster vulnerability, and the equitable allocation of adaptation and recovery resources.

Code & Reproducibility: View Project on GitHub.