Université de Fribourg

Relating forest damage data to the wind field from high-resolution RCM simulations: case study of Anatol striking Sweden in December 1999

Nilsson, C. ; Goyette, Stéphane ; Bärring, L.

In: Global and Planetary Change, 2007, vol. 57, no. 1-2, p. 161-176

Forestry is of major economical importance in Europe, and recent devastating windstorms have pinpointed the vulnerability of this economic sector to windstorms. Forest damage is an important economic issue at a country level and may become even of larger concern under future conditions following global warming. An underlying question is to what extent the storm damage is due to changes in the...

Université de Fribourg

Future extreme events in European climate: an exploration of regional climate model projections

Beniston, Martin ; Stephenson, David B. ; Christensen, Ole B. ; Ferro, Christopher A. T. ; Frei, Christoph ; Goyette, Stéphane ; Halsnaes, Kirsten ; Holt, Tom ; Jylhä, Kirsti ; Koffi, Brigitte ; Palutikof, Jean ; Schöll, Regina ; Semmler, Tido ; Woth, Katja

In: Climatic Change, 2007, vol. 81, no. Supl. 1, p. 71-95

This paper presents an overview of changes in the extreme events that are most likely to affect Europe in forthcoming decades. A variety of diagnostic methods are used to determine how heat waves, heavy precipitation, drought, wind storms, and storm surges change between present (1961–90) and future (2071–2100) climate on the basis of regional climate model simulations produced by the...

Université de Fribourg

Sensitivity analysis of snow cover to climate change scenarios and their impact on plant habitats in alpine terrain

Keller, Franziska ; Goyette, Stéphane ; Beniston, Martin

In: Climatic Change, 2005, vol. 72(3), p. 299

In high altitude areas snow cover duration largely determines the length of the growing season of the vegetation. A sensitivity study of snow cover to various scenarios of temperature and precipitation has been conducted to assess how snow cover and vegetation may respond for a very localized area of the high Swiss Alps (2050–2500 m above sea level). A surface energy balance model has been...

Université de Fribourg

Site selection for OWL using past, present, and future climate information

Graham, Edward ; Sarazin, Marc S. ; Beniston, Martin ; Collet, Claude ; Hayoz, Michael ; Neun, Moritz ; Goyette, Stéphane

In: Proceedings of SPIE, 2004, vol. 5489, p. 102

Selection of an ideal site for the new generation of Overwhelmingly Large (OWL) telescopes is dependent on many climatological and meteorological parameters. Among these are cloud cover, atmospheric humidity, aerosol content, air temperature, airflow direction, strength and turbulence. Even relatively minor changes in weather patterns can have a significant effect on seeing conditions. A...