Modelling economic losses of historic and present-day high-impact winter windstorms in Switzerland

Christoph Welker; Olivia Martius; Peter Stucki; David Bresch; Silke Dierer; Stefan Brönnimann

doi:10.3402/tellusa.v68.29546

Modelling economic losses of historic and present-day high-impact winter windstorms in Switzerland

Tellus

Volume 68 (2016): Issue 1

By: Christoph Welker, Olivia Martius, Peter Stucki, David Bresch, Silke Dierer and Stefan Brönnimann

Open Access

|Dec 2016

Abstract

This study investigates the wind gusts and associated economic loss patterns of high-impact winter windstorms in Switzerland between 1871 and 2011. A novel approach for simulating windstorm-related gusts and losses at regional to local scales is applied to a sample of 84 windstorms. The approach involves the dynamical downscaling of the Twentieth Century Reanalysis (20CR) ensemble mean to 3-km horizontal grid size using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. Economic losses are simulated at municipal level for present-day asset distribution based on the downscaled (parameterised) wind gusts at high spatiotemporal resolution using the open-source impact model climada. A comparison with insurance loss data for two recent windstorms (“Lothar” in 1999, “Joachim” in 2011) indicates that the loss simulation allows to realistically simulate the spatial patterns of windstorm losses. The loss amplitude is strongly underestimated for ‘Lothar’, while it is in reasonable agreement for ‘Joachim’. Possible reasons are discussed. Uncertainties concerning the loss simulation arise from the wind gust estimation method applied; estimates can differ considerably among the different methods, in particular over high orography. Furthermore, the quality of the loss simulation is affected by the underlying simplified assumptions regarding the distribution of assets and their susceptibilities to damage. For the whole windstorm sample, composite averages of simulated wind gust speed and loss are computed. Both composites reveal high values for the densely populated Swiss Plateau and lower values for south-eastern Switzerland; metropolitan areas stand out in the loss composite. Eight of the top 10 events concerning the losses simulated for present-day asset distribution and summed over all Swiss municipalities occurred after 1950. It remains uncertain whether this is due to decadal-scale changes of winter windstorms in Switzerland or merely due to a possible bias of the 20CR ensemble mean towards lower wind speeds in the period before around 1950.

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Articles in this issue

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3402/tellusa.v68.29546 | Journal eISSN: 3035-9554

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Language: English

Page range: 29546 - 29546

Submitted on: Aug 27, 2015

Accepted on: Mar 1, 2016

Published on: Dec 1, 2016

Published by: Stockholm University Press

In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

Keywords:

mid-latitude winter storms,

impact modelling,

risk assessment,

20CR,

WRF,

dynamical downscaling,

wind gust estimation

© 2016 Christoph Welker, Olivia Martius, Peter Stucki, David Bresch, Silke Dierer, Stefan Brönnimann, published by Stockholm University Press
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Volume 68 (2016): Issue 1