The number of people affected by tropical cyclones has nearly doubled from 2002 to 2019, reaching nearly 800 million people in 2019, according to a new study.
The number of people affected by tropical cyclones has nearly doubled from 2002 to 2019, reaching nearly 800 million people in 2019, according to a new study.
While more people are affected by tropical cyclones in Asia than any other region, every affected world region saw an increase in the number of people exposed to tropical cyclones, which are expected to become more intense and possibly more frequent as the climate warms.
“Although our study period is not sufficiently long to understand long-term trends, we observe a steady increase in both population and person-days exposure for all storm intensities in the past two decades.” said Renzhi Jing, the study's lead author and a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University.
The age distribution of those exposed to cyclones has shifted away from children under the age of 5 toward people who are aged 60 and older compared to the early 2000s, tracking with population trends in the regions most affected.
Read more at Rand Corporation
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