Assessment of the Impact of Climate Change on Thunderstorm Winds

Many recent studies have investigated the impact of climate change on wind hazards and design-level wind speeds for structural design. Future climate projections were used in these studies. However, due to climate modelling resolution, thunderstorm winds cannot be readily separated from the projections. Therefore, it is unclear if the impact of climate change on thunderstorm wind speeds is the same as the synoptic wind speeds. To answer this question, this study employed some climate projections for the RCP 6.0 scenario to study the impact of climate change on thunderstorm events in the future period between 2029 and 2049. The future thunderstorm activity and wind hazards were compared with the simulations between 1999 and 2019. The historical period simulations were also compared with the historical ground observation at selected locations in Ontario, which were used as a benchmark to determine appropriate metrics for identifying thunderstorm wind speeds from the climate modelling outputs. The identified thunderstorm winds in historical and future periods from the climate modelling outputs were then compared to appreciate the impact of climate change. The results were used to understand the impact of climate change on the occurrence of thunderstorm wind events and the design level of wind speeds.