Improved Estimates of the European Winter Windstorm Climate and the Risk of Reinsurance Loss Using Climate Model Data

Current estimates of the European windstorm climate and their associated losses are often hampered by either relatively short, coarse resolution or inhomogeneous datasets. This study tries to overcome some of these shortcomings by estimating the European windstorm climate using dynamical seasonal-to-decadal (s2d) climate forecasts from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). The current s2d models have limited predictive skill of European storminess, making the ensemble forecasts ergodic samples on which to build pseudoclimates of 310-396 yr in length. Extended winter (October-April) windstorm climatologies are created using scalar extreme wind indices considering only data above a high threshold. The method identifies up to 2363 windstorms in s2d data and up to 380 windstorms in the 40-yr ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-40). Classical extreme value analysis (EVA) techniques are used to determine the windstorm climatologies. Differences between the ERA-40 and s2d windstorm climatologies require the application of calibration techniques to result in meaningful comparisons. Using a combined dynamical-statistical sampling technique, the largest influence on ERA-40 return period (RP) uncertainties is the sampling variability associated with only 45 seasons of storms. However, both maximum likelihood (ML) and L-moments (LM) methods of fitting a generalized Pareto distribution result in biased parameters and biased RP at sample sizes typically obtained from 45 seasons of reanalysis data. The authors correct the bias in the ML and LM methods and find that the ML-based ERA-40 climatology overestimates the RP of windstorms with RPs between 10 and 300 yr and underestimates the RP of windstorms with RPs greater than 300 yr. A 50-yr event in ERA-40 is approximately a 40-yr event after bias correction. Biases in the LM method result in higher RPs after bias correction although they are small when compared with those of the ML method. The climatologies are linked to the Swiss Reinsurance Company (Swiss Re) European windstorm loss model. New estimates of the risk of loss are compared with those from historical and stochastically generated windstorm fields used by Swiss Re. The resulting loss-frequency relationship matches well with the two independently modeled estimates and clearly demonstrates the added value by using alternative data and methods, as proposed in this study, to estimate the RP of high RP losses.