Global warming and windstorm impacts in the EU : JRC PESETA IV project : Task 13.

Windstorms are amongst the most damaging natural hazards in Europe, with approximately 5 €billion of estimated annual losses in the EU. The number of reported windstorms significantly increased over the last decades, yet there is no consensus about a climate-induced trend in windstorms over Europe. Climate model projections of extreme wind are highly uncertain, also because the current generation of climate models still do not resolve spatial and temporal resolution issues. However, but they suggest that windstorms will not become more intense or happen more frequent with global warming over most of the European land, As a consequence, it is expected that risks from windstorms in the EU will not rise due to climate change. Future impacts of wind extremes could be reduced by a range of measures, such as the development and implementation of enhanced windstorm-resilient standards and building codes. During the last decades, Europe was hit by a number of highly impacting windstorms that caused a considerable human and economic impact, ranging from human fatalities and injuries to damage to roads, power plants, the agriculture sector, forests, infrastructure, and private properties. Estimated average annual losses for the EU and UK amount to 5 €billion/year (in 2015 values), or approximately 0.04% of total GDP (of 2015). Absolute losses are highest in Germany (850 €million/year), France (680 €million/year), Italy (540 €million/year) and the UK (530 €million/year), while impacts relative to the size of the economy are double the EU average in Bulgaria and Estonia (0.08% of GDP), and 0.07% of GDP in Latvia, Lithuania and Slovenia. Each year approximately 16 million citizens in the EU and UK are exposed to windstorms with an intensity that happens only once every 30 years in present climate, resulting in nearly 80 annual deaths. While in tropical regions an increase in the frequency and intensity of cyclones has been observed in the last decades, in particular from the 1990’s, in Europe there is no robust trend in windstorms.