Towards a Computational Workflow for Studying the Effects of Climate Change on Wind Loads on High-Rise Buildings in Urban Areas

Structures in the built environment that are serviceable under current climate conditions may experience problems in the coming decades as wind loads respond to anthropogenic climate change. Given the great uncertainty in the ability of current climate models to represent winds in the atmospheric boundary layer and the consequent uncertainty in the projection of future wind conditions, there is a need to formulate flexible adaptation strategies that mitigate the effects of climate change in urban regions. The present work thus proposes a multi-disciplinary workflow to investigate climate change-associated wind load effects on the built environment. As an application, projected, statistically downscaled surface wind information from global climate models is used to estimate future design wind speed for Toronto and Vancouver. CFD simulations are then performed on a building in downtown Toronto, under different projected wind scenarios. Wind loads on the building under different projected wind conditions are quantified and compared with the load associated with the National Building Code of Canada (NBCC) design wind speed. Using the proposed workflow, it was found that some climate models suggest reduced wind loads in the future (2071-2100) for buildings in Toronto, while others suggest the opposite. This cross-disciplinary workflow seeks to translate the range of projected effects of climate change into actionable knowledge useful for building design. This will deliver sustainability and resiliency-focused design, as well as retrofit recommendations for decision-makers.