Importance of the SRES in projections of climate change impacts on near-surface wind regimes

Analyses presented herein are designed to determine whether downscaled projections from the ECHAM5/MPI-OM1 Atmosphere-Ocean Global Climate Model (AOGCM) exhibit a high degree of sensitivity to the variations in the emission scenario (SRES) applied, and whether the projections of possible northern European wind climates lie beyond the range of conditions experienced in the historical period. For the study domain that extends from 51 degrees to 71 degrees N and 3 degrees to 33 degrees E, in the near-term (i.e. the middle of the current century) natural variability exceed the climate change signal. By the end of the twenty-first century there is evidence for small magnitude declines in most metrics of the wind climate relative to the 1961-1990 control period and for possible increases in extreme wind speeds, but the regionally averaged changes are of small magnitude relative to variations in two simulations of the control period. The analyses thus indicate that unlike precipitation and thermal regimes, the influence of the SRES on projections of the wind climate is small compared to natural variability and other sources of uncertainty in the downscaled projections. Results presented herein indicate that the AOGCM used to downscale wind climates has greater influence on the downscaled projections than stochastic effects within individual AOCGM simulations or the emission scenario applied.