The Storm is Coming: How We Model Cyclone Risks in a Changing Climate
By Jorge Veiras & Valeria Beljaeva
The storms we face are changing. As the planet warms, cyclones are becoming stronger, more frequent, and harder to predict. This rising risk is a big challenge including for projects aimed at restoring forests and capturing carbon. At Artio, we use the latest science to better understand these storms and predict how they’ll impact forest restoration efforts.
Now, why are cyclones changing? Cyclones are nature’s way of releasing heat. They form over warm ocean waters, which fuel their growth. The warm water heats the air above, causing it to rise and create low-pressure systems. As these systems intensify, they can turn into massive storms. The hotter the ocean, the more energy there is for cyclones to grow, making them stronger and more destructive.
Our Approach to Cyclone Risk: Looking Back to Look Ahead
To predict how storms will affect the future, we start by looking at the past. By using data from IBTrACS (International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTRACS), 2025), we can track where cyclones have occurred, when they happened, and how strong they were over the last century. This helps us identify patterns and better understand which areas are most at risk. Armed with this historical data, we can make more informed predictions about the future.
But we don’t stop there. We also use the CLIMADA (Siguan, 2023) framework to simulate how storms might evolve, especially in areas where historical data is scarce. We then adjust these models for the effects of climate change. As the planet warms, cyclones are expected to become more intense and more frequent. To account for this, we apply climate projections from the IPCC, adjusting for higher ocean temperatures, increased humidity, and other factors that influence cyclone behavior. This helps us forecast how storms will evolve in the future and better understand the risks they’ll pose to vulnerable regions.
Cyclones pose a threat to ARR projects. When a cyclone hits, wind is the main source of damage. It’s especially tough on young trees. Our models predict how different wind speeds will affect trees by using a formula based on research by (Holland, 2008). We look at how wind intensity changes as the storm moves and how it impacts trees at various distances from the cyclone’s center. The damage increases as wind speeds rise, but the relationship isn’t linear. At first, the damage is gradual, but as the wind picks up, the destruction becomes much more severe.
By combining historical data with these climate projections, we can create a clearer picture of how the risk of cyclones will change over the coming decades. This allows us to help projects prepare for the challenges that climate change will bring, and where possible mitigate its risks.
A Real-World Example: VCS1328
One example of how these storms can impact restoration projects is the Araku Valley Livelihoods Project in Andhra Pradesh, India. This reforestation project covers over 6,000 hectares of land and aims to restore degraded land, generate carbon credits, and improve food security for local communities. The project focuses on planting horticultural and indigenous tree species across multiple parcels of land managed by small farmers.
Figure 1. Overview of the project area.
In October 2014, Cyclone Hudhud, one of the most destructive storms to hit India, passed through the area. The damage was significant: over 50% of the newly planted trees needed to be replaced.
At Artio, we don’t just provide insurance, we also help projects like Araku Valley prepare for these unpredictable risks. Let’s take a closer look at how Cyclone Hudhud impacted the project:
Figure 2. Storm Hudhud's Path Across the Project Area
This image shows the track of Cyclone Hudhud, the nearest storm to the project area in recorded history. The storm didn’t just graze the project area, but passed directly over it, which made the damage even worse. The storm hit both the eastern and western parts of the region, including areas with young trees that were most vulnerable to strong winds.
Figure 3. Wind Speeds Over the Tree Plantations by Cyclone Hudhud
We also mapped the wind speeds across the project area during the storm. As expected, the areas closest to the center of the storm were hit hardest, with wind speeds exceeding 49 meters per second. These strong winds uprooted many of the young trees, making large-scale replanting efforts necessary.
To better understand future risks of the Araku Valley project, we used advanced modelling techniques to simulate potential future storms. By adjusting the initial conditions of Cyclone Hudhud, we created synthetic storm tracks to explore how future storms might behave.
Figure 4. Synthetic tracks generated by Artio modelling.
This shows the synthetic storm tracks created by Artio's model, which modifies the initial conditions of Cyclone Hudhud. By adjusting parameters like wind speed, storm intensity, and atmospheric pressure, we simulate how storms might behave in the future.
While Track 4 appears to pass farther from the project area, resulting in less damage, others, like Tracks 2 and 5, showed scenarios where the storm could be even worse than Hudhud, with stronger winds and more intense impacts. These models allow us to prepare for a range of possible outcomes, underscoring the growing unpredictability of cyclones.
Now, let’s apply climate change IPCC projections to our storm scenarios to better understand how future storms might differ due to global warming. We’ve taken both SSP126 (the best-case scenario with moderate emissions) and SSP585 (the worst-case scenario with high emissions) to model the potential impacts on the Araku Valley Livelihoods Project.
Figure 6. Changes in Storm Metrics under SSP126 and SSP585 Best and Worst Case Scenarios.
Here’s what we found: under both scenarios, wind speeds would increase by 3% in the best-case scenario and 4.5% in the worst-case compared to the past. More importantly, tree damage in the project area would increase by about 1.3% in the best case and 1.9% in the worst-case scenario.
This indicates that storms are likely to become more intense and damaging in the future, which makes it all the more important for restoration projects to be prepared.
These projections are based on historical storm tracks and the synthetic storm paths generated in the previous analysis. By applying the climate change projections to our storm models, we can see a clear trend: future storms are likely to be stronger and more damaging, with higher wind speeds and greater impacts on the tree plantations.
What This Means for the Future
The comparisons between the original Hudhud storm and the future climate scenarios show a troubling trend: as temperatures rise, cyclones will likely become stronger, bringing greater risks to projects like Araku Valley.
For restoration projects, this means that strategies to protect trees from wind damage are more critical now. Windbreaks, choosing more resilient tree species, and other mitigation strategies will be essential to help these projects thrive in an increasingly unpredictable climate.
At Artio, we’re dedicated to helping forest restoration projects navigate these growing risks. By combining our advanced modelling with proactive mitigation strategies and early-stage insurance products, we help projects prepare for the storms of tomorrow.
International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTRACS). (2025, February 24). National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/international-best-track-archive
Siguan, G.A. et al. (2023) Climada-project/climada_python: V4.0.1, Zenodo. Available at: https://zenodo.org/records/8383171 (Accessed: 6 Match 2025)
Holland, G. (2008). A revised Hurricane Pressure–Wind model. Monthly Weather Review, 136(9), 3432–3445. https://doi.org/10.1175/2008mwr2395.1
Photo by Amy Luschen on Unsplash
