TRENDS IN TROPICAL CYCLONE IMPACT A Study in Andhra Pradesh, India BY S. RAGHAVAN AND S. RAJESH Increasing damage due to tropical cyclones over Andhra Pradesh, India, is attributable mainly to economic and demographic factors and not to any increase in frequency or intensity of cyclones. t is generally accepted that, all over the world, map, Fig. 1). The damage during the past quarter cen- property damage from tropical cyclones (TC) has tury, in the coastal state of Andhra Pradesh in India Iincreased over the years. There is a common per- (Fig. 2), has been normalized for inflation, population ception in the media, and even in government and management circles, that this is due to an increase in tropical cyclone frequency and per- haps in intensity, probably as a result of global climate change. However, studies all over the world show that though there are decadal variations, there is no defi- nite long-term trend in the frequency or intensity of tropical cyclones. In this paper, we review recent worldwide literature on trends in tropical cyclone frequency, intensity, and impact, with special reference to the North Indian Ocean (NIO) ba- sin, that is, the Bay of Bengal (BoB) FIG. I. Map of the North Indian Ocean basin. The state of Andhra and Arabian Sea (AS; see locator Pradesh, India, is shown enlarged in Fig. 2. AFFILIATIONS: RAGHAVAN—India Meteorological Department 15, 2nd Cross St., Radhakrishnan Nagar, Chennai 600041, India (retired), Chennai, India; RAJESH—Madras School of Economics, E-mail:
[email protected] Chennai, India DOI: 10.1 I75/BAMS-84-5-635 CORRESPONDING AUTHOR: S.