Surface Wind Risk (IPCC CMIP6)
This layer maps mean surface wind speed under a forward-looking climate scenario.
Source: IPCC CMIP6 Year: 2050 Category: Physical risks · Mitigating services · Climate Acute Risks Coverage: Global Format: Raster grid (~100 km) Used in risk analysis: No (contextual layer; not used in materiality scoring)
What it shows
This layer maps mean surface wind speed under a forward-looking climate scenario. It reflects the background wind field a location can expect, not extreme storm events. It matters for nature-related risk because sustained higher winds drive soil erosion, increase drying and evapotranspiration, damage vegetation and infrastructure, and raise the base on which storms develop. Cyclone-specific wind hazard is covered by a separate layer.
How it is built
The layer is derived from IPCC climate projections (CMIP6) under the SSP2-4.5 scenario, evaluated at the +2°C global warming level that corresponds to the Paris Agreement target. The measured variable is mean surface wind speed, taken as the median across 31 climate models to give a robust central estimate. The projections are supplied on a coarse global grid reflecting the resolution of climate models.
How to read it
Higher values indicate areas more exposed to persistent wind effects — greater wind erosion of soils, stronger drying, and more wear on vegetation and infrastructure. Lower values indicate calmer mean conditions. Because this is a mean rather than an extreme, it describes chronic background exposure rather than acute storm hazard.
Class thresholds
The underlying layer models a physical quantity: mean surface wind speed, in metres per second (m/s) (sfcWind) — the median across 31 CMIP6 models under SSP2-4.5 at the +2°C warming level. It is rendered as a continuous colour gradient rather than discrete classes, stretched across the following range:
| Bound | Mean surface wind speed (m/s) |
|---|---|
| Low end of scale (palest colour) | 2 |
| High end of scale (darkest colour) | 10 |
A high mean-wind zone is identified where the layer value reaches sfcWind ≥ 8 m/s (template: "High mean surface wind zone (sfcWind ≥ 8 m/s, CMIP6 SSP2-4.5 +2°C)"). Note that this is a contextual layer and is not used in materiality scoring, so the 8 m/s value defines the map's high-wind callout rather than a live risk flag.
How these thresholds were set. The wind speeds come directly from the IPCC CMIP6 projection in m/s; the 2–10 m/s gradient bounds and the 8 m/s high-wind cut are a Darwin in-house classification using round-number cutoffs to span and highlight the upper end of the global mean-wind distribution. They are not a published IPCC or WWF class break.
Source
IPCC Interactive Atlas — CMIP6 climate projections (SSP2-4.5, +2°C warming level).
Comparison with the WWF Risk Filter Suite
There is no equivalent indicator in the WWF Risk Filter Suite. WWF publishes present-day indicators, whereas this is a forward-looking climate-scenario surface for mean surface wind — a physical hazard beyond the WWF set. It should be read as a Darwin scenario extension rather than a WWF-comparable indicator.
Legend
Symbolised field: Mean surface wind speed (m/s)
Generated from darwin/layers/layer-surface-wind-risk-ipcc-cmip6.toml and risk_indicator_pairs.toml (develop).