Three major coastal cities on different continents could get walloped by tropical cyclones during the next century because of climate change.

Ning Lin of Princeton University in New Jersey and Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge ran statistical models of how storms form near the cities of Dubai, Cairns in Australia and Tampa, Florida — all of which are vulnerable to rising sea levels. With climate change, storm surges could reach as high as 6 metres in Dubai during the next 100 years; the city has never experienced a tropical cyclone. Storm surges would be slightly lower in Cairns and Tampa, but still greater than the levels those cities have seen before.

The authors calculate that by the end of the century, the annual probability of such powerful storms in Tampa would increase from about 1 in 10,000 now to between 1 in 2,500 and 1 in 700.

Nature Clim. Change http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2777 (2015)