Frequency of storms over the UK will increase due to rising temperatures
The United Kingdom will face an increase in storm activity over the next years if temperatures continue to rise. Windstorms are expected to cause a subsequent increase in future insured losses.
The United Kingdom will face an increase in storm activity and the centre region will be the most affected. A new report released by the Association of British Insurers and conducted by Air Worldwide and the UK Met Office looked at climate in order to assess the risk the country will be facing in the upcoming years. But the scenario envisaged based on current data, shows that there will be an increase in future insured losses if temperatures will continue to rise.
Experts used the recent advances in climate modelling in order to better understand and to quantify the effect of changing the global temperature on the risk posed by windstorms to the United Kingdom. And while a similar study back in 2009 projected that UK will see fewer windstorms, more recent studies suggest a more complicated, tri-polar pattern with localised increases in activity over the UK.
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Rain will become widespread and steady tonight. It then turns heavy at times through tomorrow, especially during the evening rush hour pic.twitter.com/XLDpTT7IG6
— Met Office (@metoffice) May 16, 2017
Scientists used three temperature thresholds and all of them showed a spike in storm activity over the United Kingdom. The main focus of the research was on winter storms, those the are qualified as the most extreme.
European windstorms are capable of producing devastating socioeconomic impacts. For example, the Anatol storm that hit Denmark, Germany and Sweden caused a $2.6 billion losses while St Jude, that also affected the UK, produced losses of $1.3 billion. This leaves insurers naturally worried about the financial repercussions of such storms.
It's the 50th anniversary of the wettest May on record for the UK, with 128.3mm in 1967 ?️ This was 83% more than the May average pic.twitter.com/ddGcxUuMyB
— Met Office (@metoffice) May 15, 2017
The recent report looks at what will happen if the temperatures will increase by 1.5°C, 3.0°C, and 4.5°C. After the Met Office looked at how these changes will impact weather, using state of the art catastrophe models, AIR has developed “climate conditioned” catalogues of potential future events and compared the resulting losses. The results deal with annual losses over an extended time period and also the 100-year loss is the loss threshold that has a 1.0percent probability of exceedance in any given year.
Will it rain all week where you are? ?️ Find out in our look ahead to this week's weather pic.twitter.com/t4y2Zlcbnv
— Met Office (@metoffice) May 15, 2017
The results showed that under a global temperature increase of 1.5°C, the number of storms over the UK generally decreases with the largest decrease in storm occurrence taking place over the southwestern UK.
Under a global temperature increase of 3.0 and 4.5°C, the number of storms over the UK generally increases by up to 15%. An exception to this is over the southern UK where we see a decrease which gradually lessens with increasing temperature.
In general, the activity over the UK increases between subsequent climate change scenarios, the report states. The largest differences in activity were recorded in the area spanning Birmingham, Liverpool, and Sheffield.
And the models predict not only an uptake in storm activity but also an increase in wind speeds, in the same areas.
When it comes to insurers, the increase in frequency and density will lead to a spike in losses, especially in the region around London and its suburbs where population and exposure are high.
The scenario predicts that the average annual loss will increase by 11%, 23%, and 25%, corresponding to the three temperatures that were used for the model.
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