WINDSURFER

Wind and waves for reinsurance, forestry and offshore energy.

ERA4CSClimate services

WINDSURFER is a 3-year project that brings together eight leading research institutions across Europe to co-develop new methods, tools and assessments of extreme wind and wave risk with a focus on the Insurance, Forestry and Energy sectors.

Frozen soil can limit the damage that extreme winds do to forests.WINDSURFER has improved our understanding of the relationship between extreme wind gusts and frozen soils on forestry damage.
The clustering of windstorms (e.g. storms Martin and Lothar in Dec 1999) can lead to increased wind risk.A novel assessment of the impact of windstorm clustering on extreme European wind risk, and their potential impacts on insurance losses, has been made using long climate model simulations.
WINDSURFER has investigated the suitability of the Copernicus C3S ERA20C reanalysesfor understanding how mid-latitude storms and wind risks have varied over the 20th century.

About

What is the WINDSURFER project about?

Extreme winds pose major risks to life, property and forestry, while extreme ocean waves can impact on offshore infrastructures and coastal communities. WINDSURFER is a 3-year project that brings together eight leading research institutions across Europe to co-develop new methods, tools and assessments of extreme wind and wave risk with a focus on the Insurance, Forestry and Energy sectors.

Caption: WINDSURFER Project pictures

Extreme winds and waves have substantial socioeconomic impacts. Left: Forestry damage after windstorm Gudrun. Middle: Property damage after windstorm Kyrill. Right: Extreme waves at the North Sea Ekofisk platform

Highlights

Frozen soil can limit the damage that extreme winds do to forests. WINDSURFER has improved our understanding of the relationship between extreme wind gusts and frozen soils on forestry damage.
The clustering of windstorms (e.g. storms Martin and Lothar in Dec 1999) can lead to increased wind risk. A novel assessment of the impact of windstorm clustering on extreme European wind risk, and their potential impacts on insurance losses, has been made using long climate model simulations.
WINDSURFER has investigated the suitability of the Copernicus C3S ERA20C reanalyses for understanding how mid-latitude storms and wind risks have varied over the 20th Century.

Keywords / hashtags

Keywords: Extremes, Storms, Waves, Climate Change, Windsurfer-project

Hashtags: #storms #waves #climatechange

Potential societal impacts

The results from WINDSURFER are being used to improve our understanding of extreme winds and waves and their associated socioeconomic impacts. WINDSURFER is engaging with the forestry, insurance, and offshore energy sectors to understand their needs and provide them with new tools and data to assess extreme wind and wave risks for present-day and future climates.

Len Shaffrey

Professor of Climate Science

My name is Len Shaffrey, (email: L.C.Shaffrey@reading.ac.uk). I am a Professor of Climate Science in the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading and the Theme Leader for Climate and High Impact Weather in the National Centre for Atmospheric Science in the UK. My personal research focuses on the impact of climate variability and change on weather extremes such as storms, floods and droughts, including improving seasonal to decadal climate forecasts.

Project consortium

Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change
University of Reading
Met Éireann
Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute
Finnish Meteorological Institute
Meteorologisk Institutt
Institute of Environmental Hydraulics of Cantabria
NCSR Demokritos

Show all partners

WINDSURFER is being led by the University of Reading in the UK. Met Éireann in Ireland, CMCC in Italy, KNMI in Netherlands and the Finnish Meteorological Institute in Finland are working on wind extremes. The Norwegian Meteorological Institute in Norway, IH Cantabria in Spain and NCSR Demokritos, Greece are working on wave extremes.

WINDSURFER is engaging with stakeholders in the insurance, offshore energy and forestry sectors. For example, WINDSURFER partners gave presentations on climate change and wave and wind risk at the International Oil and Gas Producers workshop on “Our Future Climate”. Similarly, results on the impact of windstorm clustering are being used to evaluate loss models in the insurance industry.

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Parent programme

ERA4CS

European Research Area for Climate Services

ERA-NET Cofund for Climate Services - This ERA-NET Consortium has been designed to boost the development of efficient Climate Services in Europe, by supporting research for developing better tools, methods and standards on how to produce, transfer, communicate and use reliable climate information to cope with current and future climate variability.

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