Geophys. Res. Lett. 38, L14703 (2011)

Climate change is anticipated to lead to more frequent wind storms in Europe with an associated boost in the incidence of dangerous sea conditions, coastal flooding and property damage. Some modelling studies indicate that an increasing storm trend may already be detectable in observational records, but robust evidence has been missing.

Markus Donat, of the Climate Change Research Centre at University of New South Wales, Sydney, and his co-workers used a newly developed atmospheric reconstruction for the period 1871–2008 to calculate two different measures of storminess — storm frequency and local wind speeds — for six regions across Europe.

In addition to pronounced decadal-scale variability, the researchers found a distinct increase in wind-storm activity towards the end of the twentieth century, which was particularly clear in the North Sea and Baltic Sea regions. It is not yet clear whether this trend can be attributed to climate change.