IAWE Equitable Response to Climate Change: Impacts, Adaptations and Mitigations
Chair: Teng Wu, University at Buffalo, USA
Co-Chair: Hassan Hemida, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom
The purpose of this Task Group will review and assess existing climate science data and investigate how climate change will alter wind conditions at different regions (i.e., Americas, Asian-Oceania, and Europe-Africa).
This Task Group will review the current adaptation plans (e.g., robust decision making) and mitigation strategies (e.g., advancing codes and standards) that help us fight against climate change with equitable response. These objectives will be achieved by preparing an IAWE Report on Climate Change, organizing IAWE Seminar Series on Climate Change, and initiating the first IAWE Workshop on Climate Change.
Non-synoptic winds on structures & infrastructures: realistic modeling of wind loads for ensuring safety & serviceability
Chair: Girma Bitsuamlak, Western University, Canada
Co-Chair: Luca Caracoglia, Northeastern University, USA
IAWE is the largest and most accredited international research community/network in wind engineering in its wider spectrum and shall respond to the acute need of upgrading wind load modelling while considering non-synoptic events such as thunderstorms, tornados, and gust fronts. This shall occur while elaborating and validating experimental, analytical or numerical tools to be possibly shared with stakeholders and immediately adopted by designers.
Chairman: Yuichi Ono (Tohoku University, Japan)
Vice Chiarman: Shuyang Cao (Tongji University, China)
Kazuyoshi Nishijima (Kyoto University, Japan)
Honorary Chairman: Yukio Tamura (Chongqing University, China) (Founding Chair)
During CADRR (Cooperative Actions for Disaster Risk Reduction) held in Tokyo in March 2009, the participations of the representatives from IAWE, IAEE, UN-ISDR, ADRC, WMO, NOAA and others reached a consensus that there is a critical need to establish an International Group (IG) to work on Wind-Related DRR. The main task of this group would be to establish linkages and to coordinate various communities, e.g., IAWE, to serve as inter-agency coordinators with a charter to work with international organizations involving agencies of the UN and involved NGOs, and to empower them with the responsibility to serve as a bridge between policy makers and agencies responsible for actually carrying out the DRR at the local community level.
There is overwhelming evidence (albeit with different levels of certainty) that the rate of anthropogenic global warming significantly exceeds natural climate fluctuations. As a result of changes in various weather phenomena caused due to climate change and variability, there have been many extreme events in recent years that have resulted in damage to our communities totalling in the billions of dollars, and much of the loss is attributed to extreme wind events. To assess the climate change effects on wind environments and wind loads on structures and infrastructure, various windstorm types (e.g., synoptic wind, tropical cyclone, thunderstorm downburst, tornado) that control different design wind speed ranges need to be holistically considered under changing climate conditions. More importantly, climate change effects on windstorms and the corresponding impacts/risks present significant variabilities all over the world (at different geographic locations and with different social vulnerabilities). We need an equitable response to climate change.