Complex picture for likelihood of ENSO-driven flood hazard

Emerton, R., Cloke, H. L. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1472-868X, Stephens, E. M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5439-7563, Zsoter, E., Woolnough, S. J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0500-8514 and Pappenberger, F. (2017) Complex picture for likelihood of ENSO-driven flood hazard. Nature Communications, 8. 14796. ISSN 2041-1723 doi: 10.1038/ncomms14796

Abstract/Summary

El Niño and La Niña events, the extremes of ENSO climate variability, influence river flow and flooding at the global scale. Estimates of the historical probability of extreme (high or low) precipitation are used to provide vital information on the likelihood of adverse impacts during extreme ENSO events. However, the nonlinearity between precipitation and flood magnitude motivates the need for estimation of historical probabilities using analysis of hydrological datasets. Here, this analysis is undertaken using the ERA-20CM-R river flow reconstruction for the 20th Century. Our results show that the likelihood of increased or decreased flood hazard during ENSO events is much more complex than is often perceived and reported; probabilities vary greatly across the globe, with large uncertainties inherent in the data and clear differences when comparing the hydrological analysis to precipitation.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/68946
Identification Number/DOI	10.1038/ncomms14796
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Interdisciplinary Research Centres (IDRCs) > Walker Institute Science > School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science > Earth Systems Science Science > School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science > Department of Geography and Environmental Science Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Department of Meteorology
Publisher	Nature Publishing Group
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