Space-Time Statistical Models for Hurricane Climate and Change

Progress has been made in understanding and predicting hurricane activity on the seasonal and longer time scales over the basin as a whole. But significant gaps remain in understanding what regulates hurricane activity regionally. We propose to better understand and predict regional hurricane activity on seasonal to decadal time scales it is necessary to use multilevel (hierarchical) statistical models. The broader impacts are more precise predictions of future hurricane activity, a better understanding of the hurricane threat to the United States, and a new toolkit for modeling climate data.