Changes in extreme winds and their impact on coastal areas across mid- and high- European latitudes

Any change in sea level represents a hazard to human lives and infrastructures at densely populated coastal regions.

Driven by strong winds, extreme sea level rises induce harmful landslides and floods along the coasts of the Baltic and the Mediterranean Sea.

Therefore, it is crucial to understand possible changes in the extreme wind climate, so that protection measures could be timely implemented. Although, wind changes under a warmer climate are still a matter of debate.

Even if a general slowdown and a recent recover in mean wind speed was observed over many mid-latitude regions, there is no consensus about future wind trends and how extreme winds change in relation to the mean.

This project aims at increasing the knowledge of changes and variations in extreme winds under global warming and to quantify their impacts on sea level changes across the Baltic and western Mediterranean Sea regions.

The project is organized with three work packages (WP) to be carried out over 3-years (2021-2024): (WP1) to rescue and homogenize of extreme wind observation; (WP2) to assess and attribute changes and variabilities in observed and simulated extreme wind datasets; and (WP3) to quantify and risk assess the impact of extreme wind variability on sea level changes.

Thanks to the collaboration of three international research groups, a new insight on extreme wind changes will be implemented for the planning of adaptation strategies in relation to extreme sea level risks.