Abstract: Climate risks may escalate in surprising ways due to changes in hazard characteristics or societal exposure. Motivated by first-hand research and operation experiences, this introduction talk will provide an overview of emerging climate risks associated with hurricanes and wind energy applications.

Part I will review societal impacts of hurricanes (e.g., power outages) and future changes in hurricane activity. Specially, idealized climate simulations highlight a potential increase (10×) of hurricane activity at the midlatitudes. Driven by ocean warming and midlatitude circulation changes, this increase can pose a significant threat to populous coastal regions.

Part II will discuss ongoing research on two types of climate risks for the wind industry: wind extremes and wind stilling. The strongest wind that challenges wind operation is often attributable to hurricanes, but such wind threats have been hard to observe and quantify. New modeling and observational data suggest the current industry standards systematically underestimate hurricane-related wind threats. This could render offshore wind projects underprepared for future hurricane risks. Meanwhile, risks of onshore wind stilling may increase in a warmer climate and lower the output of wind projects in the US. This stillness has not been well understood and may have broad implications, such as the financial viability of wind projects and the resource adequacy of future energy grids. Understanding and mitigating these emerging climate risks needs close collaboration between climate and energy researchers.