Scientists from the Willis Research Network (WRN) have outlined groundbreaking new research on future hurricane activity and storm clustering today, including unparalleled use of supercomputers to tackle Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico hurricane risk.

In his keynote presentation at the latest Willis Research Network Seminar, “Supercomputers, Climate Change and Catastrophe Modelling,” Dr Greg Holland from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) described how NCAR’s premier models for weather and climate, along with the computing power of its Bluefire supercomputer, are being used to dramatically enhance research into changes in future location, frequency, wind severity and rainfall of hurricane tracks across key Atlantic regions.

“Combined advances in supercomputing capacity and innovative approaches to climate modelling are enabling us to substantially improve the capacity for projecting future variations and trends in weather systems of high impact to society,” said Dr Holland.

Modelling high impact weather systems, such as local flash flooding, hurricanes and European Windstorms, requires computer models of a complexity and scale hitherto only possible for short-term weather forecasts.

NCAR is working to develop the ability to make long-range forecasts by combining its advanced weather forecasting model with its IPCC climate model.  The combination is expected to enable predictions of changes in the characteristics of high-impact weather on decadal time scales. After three years of testing and development, the program is currently nearing the completion of a 50-year projection of variations in Atlantic hurricanes and western US precipitation.

“The first few months of 2009 will be extremely exciting for us as the first results begin to come in,” said Dr Holland. “These results will be used to develop new approaches to assessing risk and vulnerability to severe weather, by combining the model projections with statistical assessments based on existing weather records.”

Rowan Douglas, Chairman, Willis Research Network, commented, “This research will have far-reaching consequences throughout the scientific and financial services communities. Willis’ focus now is to apply this work quickly and practically to the risk modelling work we do for our clients in the re/insurance industry.”

 

Please see the full release below.