Evaluating the ability of atmospheric climate models to represent damaging European windstorms

The damaging winds associated with extreme European windstorms can cause large socioeconomic losses. For example, the three windstorms (Anatol, Lothar and Martin) that crossed North Western Europe during December 1999 caused an estimated 18.5 billion Euros of insured loss. Understanding how windstorms may respond to climate change is essential for assessing future weather risks. In order to have confidence in climate projections it is essential that climate models are capable representing a realistic spatial distribution of European windstorms as well as realistically simulating the high winds associated with extreme windstorms. The aims of this studentship are to i) assess the ability of climate models to represent extreme European Windstorms and ii) assess the long-term variability of European windstorms in long climate model simulations. The representation of European windstorms from the CMIP5 climate models and from the high-resolution HiGEM climate model will initially be assessed. An analysis of the projected response of windstorms to climate change will also be performed.

The project is co-supervised by Richard Dixon (Hiscox) and Hazel Thornton (Met Office) and is available to start in October 2013

Further details of the project can be found at
http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/pg-research/shaffrey_phd.pdf

General information on the PhD programme at the Department of Meteorology can be found at
http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/pg-research/