Tropical cyclones will cause $109 billion in damages worldwide by 2100 with the United States and China being hardest hit, says a new study.

The figure includes population and economic growth costs ($56 billion) as well as the effects of climate change ($53 billion). All figures are in U.S. dollars.

The estimates are based on a future global population of nine billion and an annual increase of approximately three per cent in gross world product until 2100, according to the study published on Wednesday in the journal Nature Climate Change.

"More people making a lot more income will put more capital in harm’s way,” said Robert Mendelsohn of Yale University, the lead economist on the project.

The U.S. and China will incur 75 per cent of global damages from climate change — $25 billion and $15 billion respectively. Small islands, especially in the Caribbean, will also be hit hard, suffering the highest percentage of damages per unit of GDP — 37 per cent.

More intense storms will become more frequent with climate change, the study says.

“The biggest storms cause most of the damage,” said Mendelsohn. “With the present climate, almost 93 per cent of tropical cyclone damage is caused by only 10 per cent of the storms. Warming will increase the frequency of these high-intensity storms at least in the North Pacific and North Atlantic Ocean basins, causing most of the increase in damage.”

Currently, tropical cyclones cause $26 billion in global damages, which is four per cent of gross world product. North America and East Asia absorb 88 per cent of these damages because these regions have powerful storms and well-developed coastlines.

Meanwhile, Europe and South America will suffer less than $1 billion a year in future economic damage from tropical cyclones because there are few storms there.

The damage in Africa will also be low because the continent has “relatively little in harm’s way,” Mendelsohn said. However, damages in Asia and Central America are expected to grow rapidly along with high economic growth.

Researchers used the tropical cyclone model in conjunction with climate models to predict how the frequency, intensity and location of tropical cyclones will change in the seven ocean basins of the world. They found that minimum barometric pressure predicts damages more accurately than maximum wind speed.