Climate change impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2016

Climate change impacts on society
5.5.3 Road transport
The WEATHER project noted that regional climate
models projecting the future cannot reproduce all
weather events with the same accuracy, and results
partially disagree between the models. Purely
temperature-related phenomena (heat waves and
cold spells) can be reproduced fairly well, while
dynamic phenomena (wind and precipitation) are
more challenging. Small-scale phenomena such
as thunderstorms, blizzards and fog cannot be
fully resolved by current models; thus, changes
in these phenomena have to be retrieved using
indirect methods, implying additional uncertainties.
The impacts listed in Table 5.7 refer to direct,
weather‐induced consequences, which in turn have the
potential to cause delays, increased accident rates and
temporary road closures (Enei et al., 2011; Doll et al.,
2014).
The WEATHER project estimated the costs of weather
events for road transport to be roughly EUR 1.8 billion
annually for 2000–2010. Infrastructure costs account
for 53 % of those costs, followed by time costs (16 %)
and health and life (accident-related) costs (13 %).
Costs would increase by 7 % by 2040–2050, mainly
driven by higher infrastructure costs; in fact, the other
components, related to users' costs and services, would
decrease. This increase would not be homogeneous
across Europe: the highest increases were estimated for
France (72 %) and Scandinavia (22 %) (Enei et al., 2011).
The EWENT project provides different results. EWENT
takes into account different patterns in the growth of
road transport for passengers and freight, the former
growing significantly less than the latter. Weather‐related
costs in road transport for the reference year (2010)
were estimated to be EUR 18 billion; in 2040–2070
road accident costs would be reduced by EUR 4 billion,
whereas freight-related costs would increase by
EUR 6 billion (Nokkala et al., 2012).
Relevant research activities to support adaptation
planning are also occurring at the national level,
for example the programme 'Adaptation of road
infrastructure to climate change' (AdSVIS) ( 110 ) in
Germany.
5.5.4 Rail transport
Rail transport has been identified as particularly
vulnerable to changes in climate as a result of the
relative complexity of its different sub-systems
(infrastructure, energy, communications and
signalisation) and their exposure to weather conditions
(Nolte et al., 2011). The main threats of climate change
to rail transport are higher temperatures and extreme
weather events such as floods and storms. The effects
of these events are an increased risk of rail buckling,
instability of embankments and damage to bridges
(Altvater et al., 2011). As the climate warms, milder
winter conditions are likely to improve the safety record
for railways in some regions.
Annual average costs of extreme weather impacts
on rail transport for the reference year (2010) have
been estimated by the WEATHER project to be
around EUR 0.3 billion, distributed among vehicles
(41 %), infrastructure (34 %) and users' costs (25 %).
A significant increase of these annual costs (72 %)
would be expected by 2040–2050, affecting mainly
those regions with a combination of dense networks
and particular exposure to higher temperatures and
precipitations, such as France (187 %), the British Isles
(151 %) and Scandinavia (101 %). It is worth noting that,
in spite of this significant relative growth, the absolute
values remain modest compared with the total
turnover of the rail sector (Przyluski et al., 2011).
The EWENT project reported low economic impacts
in 2040–2070 compared with 2010: an increase
of EUR 100 million per year in accident costs and
EUR 17 million per year on freight and logistics costs,
mainly as a result of the effects of extreme weather on
the significantly increasing levels of traffic (Nokkala et al.,
2012).
5.5.5 Air transport
Although aviation already deals with disruptive
weather on a regular basis, it will be affected by
both future changes in extreme weather events
and changes in average climatic conditions such as
temperature. The vulnerability of aviation to extreme
events will further increase because free capacity,
which is currently used to absorb the impact of weather
events, will increasingly be occupied by additional
flights (McCallum et al., 2013). Sea level rise and
flooding could affect airports located in coastal areas
across Europe, and increased extreme weather events
(mainly increased wind and storms) would mainly affect
northern, eastern, western and central Europe and
would have operational impacts such as loss of capacity
and increased delays (Eurocontrol, 2013). Climate
change can also affect the demand for air transport,
e.g. if tourists change their destination choice because
( 110 ) http://adsvis.de/index.php?lang=en.
260 Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2016 | An indicator-based report