Does the winter storm-related wind gust intensity in Germany increase under warming climate? – A high-resolution assessment

Abstract

Destructive winter storms cause recurring major damage to physical, biological, human, and managed systems in Central Europe. Therefore, detailed knowledge of their future development in many areas of human life is of great importance for planning strategic management decisions. One feature to characterise the winter storm intensity is the daily maximum gust speed for a 10-yr return period (GS10yr). In this study, the development of GS10yr under the representative concentration pathways RCP45 and RCP85 in the near future (2019–2049), mid future (2044–2074), and far future (2069–2099) was assessed. Gust speed projections were derived from 19 regional climate models (RCM) available from the EURO-CORDEX initiative. The GS10yr estimates were first bias-corrected and then combined with the historical winter storm atlas for Germany (GeWiSA) yielding highly resolved (25 m × 25 m) GS10yr grids. The results which are available on a monthly basis, indicate a significant increase in winter storm-related wind gust intensity in October under RCP45 and in November and December under RCP85 towards the end of the 21st century. The proposed methodology allows the quantification of the uncertainty associated with winter storm projections and the development of climate-sensitive storm damage models.