A data collection of tropical cyclone exposure data sets (TCE-DAT)

Tropical cyclones (TCs) pose a major risk to societies worldwide. While data on observed cyclones tracks
(location of the center) and wind speeds is publicly available these data sets do not contain information
on the spatial extent of the storm and people or assets exposed. Here, we provide a collection of tropical
cyclone exposure data (TCE-DAT) derived with the help of spatially-explicit data on population densities
and Gross Domestic Product (GDP), also available at http://doi.org/10.5880/pik.2017.007. Up to now,
this collection contains:
1) A global data set of tropical cyclone exposure accumulated to the country/event level
http://doi.org/10.5880/pik.2017.0052) A global data set of spatially-explicit tropical cyclone exposure available for all TC events since
1950 http://doi.org/10.5880/pik.2017.008
TCE-DAT is considered key information to 1) assess the contribution of climatological versus socioeconomic
drivers of changes in exposure to tropical cyclones, 2) estimate changes in vulnerability from
the difference in exposure and reported damages and calibrate associated damage functions, and 3) build
improved exposure-based predictors to estimate higher-level societal impacts such as long-term effects
on GDP, employment, or migration. We expect that the free availability of the underlying model and
TCE-DAT will make research on tropical cyclone risks more accessible to non-experts and stakeholders.