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Weather and Climate

Paper Session

Saturday, Jan. 6, 2024 2:30 PM - 4:30 PM (CST)

Grand Hyatt, Bonham D
Hosted By: Association of Environmental and Resource Economists
  • Chair: Andrew Waxman, University of Texas-Austin

Forecasts and Climate Mortality Estimates

Laura Bakkensen
,
University of Arizona
Derek Lemoine
,
University of Arizona
Manuel Linsenmeier
,
Columbia University
Jeffrey Shrader
,
Columbia University

Abstract

Temperature-related mortality is estimated to be one of the largest sources of climate change damage. These estimates come from regressing mortality on realized temperature but ignore the presence of weather forecasts. Prior work has shown that forecasts can help people avoid mortality from temperature. In the presence of forecasts, existing temperature-mortality estimates mask heterogeneous effects coming from time periods when temperature it curately versus inaccurately forecasted. This can bias projected mortality responses to climate change in either direction, depending on how forecast quality evolves as the climate changes.

The project combines CDC data on mortality at the county-day level with weather observations from PRISM and weather forecasts from the National Weather Service. The forecasts are widely viewed by the public on cell phones, the web, local new stations, and newspapers.
Theoretically, current estimates of the effect of temperature on mortality are averages over the forecast error distribution. To unpack this heterogeneity, we flexibly regress mortality on temperature, temperature forecasts, and the interaction of the two variables.

We find that accurately forecasted weather has much smaller effects on mortality. For example, the hottest 1% of days in the US cause a reduction in mortality compared to a moderate day if the hot day is accurately forecasted. In contrast, if there is a forecast error on a hot day, then mortality increases rapidly. Under the assumption that current forecast quality remains fixed, mortality projections are close to central estimates from recent integrated assessments. If forecast quality continues to improve at historical rates, mortality damages are projected to be 20% lower than current estimates. A large unknown, however, is whether climate change will reduce forecast quality. Current evidence on this effect is mixed, meaning that more research should be done to understand how climate change will influence forecasts.

Equitably Targeting Climate Adaptation

Derek Lemoine
,
University of Arizona
Antonia Marcheva
,
Cornell University
Ivan Rudik
,
Cornell University
Weiliang Tan
,
Cornell University

Abstract

We develop a framework for equitably targeting climate adaptation funding around the world. We use our new framework to answer three questions about equity and climate adaptation. First. how do different preferences about inequality over the distribution of global climate impacts affect how we should be directing adaptation investments around the world? Second, does there exist an equity-efficiency tradeoff in where we direct climate adaptation, and if so, how severe is it? Third, how important is capturing spatial trade linkages that allow for adaptation investments in one region to be transmitted and provide benefits in another?

To answer these questions we develop a theoretical framework where a planner aims to minimize inequality around the world subject to achieving a minimum level of aggregate welfare gains from adaptation. We provide theoretical results that show equality motives drive adaptation to be targeted toward regions that bear a greater share of global damage. or whose adaptation benefits tend to be transmitted to regions that bear a greater share of global damage. The most averse to inequality we are. the most concentrated adaptation becomes in a small handful of the most-harmed regions.

We quantify our model using global data on trade and production to compute equity-efficiency frontiers for climate adaptation. We find that there is an equity-efficiency tradeoff. Adaptation budgets that can mitigate 20% of global damages exhibit almost perfect substitutability berween increasing equality and reducing aggregate damages. however almost the entire frontier leads to reductions in equality and improvements in aggregate welfare.

Last, we find that transmission of adaptation benefits is important. On average, a fifth of the benefits of global adaptation come from benefits spilling over through global trade. Adaptation funding should not necessarily be targeted solely on a region's own climate exposure but also how its exposure harms other regions.

The Social Value of Hurricane Forecasts

Renato Molina
,
University of Miami
Ivan Rudik
,
Cornell University

Abstract

Hurricanes are amongst the most common and costliest type of natural disaster in the United States. To help reduce their impact, the government has devoted significant efforts to improve hurricane forecasting capabilities, and since 2005, track and wind speed error have been reduced by about 40% each. However. and despite these remarkable achievements, the social benefits of this program remain uncertain. In this paper, we shed light on this issue by empirically deriving the social value of forecasting hurricanes.

We study this problem using newly collected forecast data for major US hurricanes since 2005. We find that higher wind speed forecasts increase pre-landfall protective spending. but under-forecast erTors increase post-landfall damage and rebuilding costs. We develop a theoretically grounded approach for estimating the marginal value of forecast improvements and find that the average annual improvement reduces total hurricane costs by over $150,000/county or $100/person. Improvements since 2007 reduced costs by 9%, averaging $3 billion per hurricane. This exceeds the annual budget for all federal weather forecasting in the US

Rain Follows the Forest: Land Use Policy, Climate Change, and Adaptation

Florian Grosset
,
Columbia University
Anna Papp
,
Columbia University
Charles Taylor
,
University of California-Berkeley

Abstract

Human actions can alter the regional climate, particularly via land use. We analyze the Great Plains Shelterbelt, a large-scale forestation program in the 1930s across the US Midwest. This program led to a decades-long increase in precipitation and decrease in temperature. Changes extended to adjacent unforested land up to 200km away – enabling us to directly study climate adaptation. In downwind places facing better growing conditions, crop yields increased 11-22%, and farmers switched to more water-intensive production. Regional climate is endogenous to land use policy, with implications for the study of climate change impacts and mitigation.

Discussant(s)
Vaibhav Anand
,
St. John's University
David Kelly
,
University of Miami
Jackson Dorsey
,
University of Texas-Austin
Andrew Waxman
,
University of Texas-Austin
JEL Classifications
  • Q5 - Environmental Economics
  • Q2 - Renewable Resources and Conservation