Beschreibung:
<jats:p>Abstract. Several major storms pounded western Europe in January 2018, generating large damages and casualties.
The two most impactful ones,
Eleanor and Friederike, are analysed here in the context of climate change.
Near surface wind speed station observations exhibit a decreasing trend in
the frequency of strong winds associated with such storms. High-resolution
regional climate models, on the other hand, show no trend up to now and a
small increase in storminess in future due to climate change. This shows
that factors other than climate change, which are not in the climate
models, caused the observed decline in storminess over land. A large part is
probably due to increases in surface roughness, as shown for a small set of
stations covering the Netherlands and in previous studies. This observed
trend could therefore be independent from climate evolution. We concluded
that human-induced climate change has had so far no significant influence on
storms like the two mentioned. However, all simulations indicate that global warming
could lead to a marginal increase (0 %–20 %) in the probability of extreme
hourly winds until the middle of the century, consistent with previous
modelling studies. This excludes other factors, such as surface roughness,
aerosols, and decadal variability, which have up to now caused a much larger
negative trend. Until these factors are correctly simulated by climate
models, we cannot give credible projections of future storminess over
land in Europe.
</jats:p>