Maps of wind hazard over South Eastern South America: present climate and projections

CARRIL A. F.; SANABRIA A.

CLIMATIC CHANGE

SPRINGER

Lugar: Berlin; Año: 2018

0165-0009

p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 10); line-height: 120%; text-align: left; }p.western { }a:link { color: rgb(0, 0, 255); }Wind is one of the most dangerous natural phenomena for the builtenvironment in South Eastern South America. The hazard posed by winddepends on the extreme wind speeds on the surface and can bequantified by calculating the Average Recurrence Interval -morecommonly known as Return Period- of these winds. Maps of ReturnPeriod of extreme wind speeds are used by planning authorities toenforce appropriate standards for infrastructure construction in mostcountries of the world. These maps are usually built up from windspeeds recorded at a network of weather stations. In some countries,however, the quality of the records is poor or the stations have notbeen in operation for long enough to give appropriate data for windhazard studies. Thiswork provides a first approach for assessing the potential impact ofclimate change on wind hazard, a matter great of importance forplanning and emergency authorities. Results based in wind-speeds frommodels and reanalysis (i) provide insights of the frequency of dailymaximum surface wind speed (from the 6-hour simulated values of10-meter height winds) in a spatially distributed view, for returnperiods greater than 50-year and (ii) provide a good introduction tothe expected response of the wind-speeds to climate change.Resultsbased on the statistics of grid-point-based 50-year return period ofwind-speeds indicate that we could expect few changes in wind hazardover South Eastern South America during most of the 21stcentury. Magnitude of changes amplifies with the time (sign isdecreasing wind-speeds), strengthening confidence for far-futureprojections.