Risk of Exceeding Extreme Design Storm Events under Possible Impact of Climate Change

Abstract

AbstractGiven the risk of intensive storms (the probability of exceeding certain storm intensity one or more times within the project life) of central Alberta is expected to change in the future, a new risk chart is proposed which represents the nonlinear relationship between storm intensity, design project life, and the risk of intensive storms being exceeded within the project life. First, a comparison between estimated risk charts of the past (1914–1995) and the present (1984–2010) for central Alberta shows that the risk of intensive storms occurring has increased for all storm durations in recent years, and the risk had been higher for storms of large return periods (≥50 year). Given a design project life of 50 years, the average increase in risk is 9%. Second, the uncertainty associated with projecting the risk of intensive storms occurring in 2011–2100 was assessed by considering three special reports on emissions scenarios (SRESs) of four global climate models (GCMs) dynamically downscaled by a re...