Impact of Climate Change on Extreme Windstorms and Implications for Structural Design in the United States

Climate change impacts various extreme windstorms associated with specific meteorological phenomena in different ways. Because various windstorms contribute to the design wind speeds, this study systematically reviewed the state-of-the-art understanding of climate change effects on wind events that collectively contribute to structural wind design in North America, particularly the US, including extratropical cyclones (as well as nor’easters), tropical cyclones, thunderstorms, and tornadoes. For each windstorm type, the general evidence of climate change impacts on storm activities (e.g., occurrence frequency and intensity) are summarized, followed by the introduction of existing simulation frameworks for yearly (or subyearly) maximum storm winds under changing climate. Relevant simulation results demonstrating climate change impacts on design wind speeds are presented. In addition, major challenges associated with climate, weather, or wind simulations (e.g., resolution and duration) and data analyses (e.g., sample extrema and nonstationary extreme value analysis) to quantify the climate change effects on design wind speeds are discussed.