Articles | Volume 23, issue 8
https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-2841-2023
https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-2841-2023
Research article
 | 
24 Aug 2023
Research article |  | 24 Aug 2023

A long record of European windstorm losses and its comparison to standard climate indices

Stephen Cusack

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Cited articles

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Athanasiadis, P. J., Yeager, S., Kwon, Y.-O., Bellucci, A., Smith, D. W., and Tibaldi, S.: Decadal predictability of North Atlantic blocking and the NAO, npj Clim. Atmos. Sci., 3, 20, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-020-0120-6, 2020. 
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Barredo, J. I.: No upward trend in normalised windstorm losses in Europe: 1970–2008, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 10, 97–104, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-10-97-2010, 2010. 
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The link from European windstorm research findings to insurance applications is strengthened by a new storm loss history spanning 1950 to 2022. It is based on ERA5 winds, together with long-term trends from observed gusts for improved validation. Correlations between losses and climate indices are around 0.4 for interannual variations, rising to 0.7 for decadal variations. A significant divergence between standard climate indices and storm losses over the past 20 years needs further research.
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