Articles | Volume 24, issue 10
https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3315-2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3315-2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
30 Sep 2024
Research article |
| 30 Sep 2024
| 30 Sep 2024
Algorithmically detected rain-on-snow flood events in different climate datasets: a case study of the Susquehanna River basin
Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA
Benjamin D. Ascher
Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA
now at: Meteorologisches Institut, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany
Alan M. Rhoades
Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA
Rachel R. McCrary
Research Applications Laboratory, NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA
Related authors
Malcolm John Roberts, Kevin A. Reed, Qing Bao, Joseph J. Barsugli, Suzana J. Camargo, Louis-Philippe Caron, Ping Chang, Cheng-Ta Chen, Hannah M. Christensen, Gokhan Danabasoglu, Ivy Frenger, Neven S. Fučkar, Shabeh ul Hasson, Helene T. Hewitt, Huanping Huang, Daehyun Kim, Chihiro Kodama, Michael Lai, Lai-Yung Ruby Leung, Ryo Mizuta, Paulo Nobre, Pablo Ortega, Dominique Paquin, Christopher D. Roberts, Enrico Scoccimarro, Jon Seddon, Anne Marie Treguier, Chia-Ying Tu, Paul A. Ullrich, Pier Luigi Vidale, Michael F. Wehner, Colin M. Zarzycki, Bosong Zhang, Wei Zhang, and Ming Zhao
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2582, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2582, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
HighResMIP2 is a model intercomparison project focussing on high resolution global climate models, that is those with grid spacings of 25 km or less in atmosphere and ocean, using simulations of decades to a century or so in length. We are proposing an update of our simulation protocol to make the models more applicable to key questions for climate variability and hazard in present day and future projections, and to build links with other communities to provide more robust climate information.
Justin L. Willson, Kevin A. Reed, Christiane Jablonowski, James Kent, Peter H. Lauritzen, Ramachandran Nair, Mark A. Taylor, Paul A. Ullrich, Colin M. Zarzycki, David M. Hall, Don Dazlich, Ross Heikes, Celal Konor, David Randall, Thomas Dubos, Yann Meurdesoif, Xi Chen, Lucas Harris, Christian Kühnlein, Vivian Lee, Abdessamad Qaddouri, Claude Girard, Marco Giorgetta, Daniel Reinert, Hiroaki Miura, Tomoki Ohno, and Ryuji Yoshida
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 2493–2507, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-2493-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-2493-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Accurate simulation of tropical cyclones (TCs) is essential to understanding their behavior in a changing climate. One way this is accomplished is through model intercomparison projects, where results from multiple climate models are analyzed to provide benchmark solutions for the wider climate modeling community. This study describes and analyzes the previously developed TC test case for nine climate models in an intercomparison project, providing solutions that aid in model development.
Skyler Graap and Colin M. Zarzycki
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 1627–1650, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-1627-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-1627-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
A key target for improving climate models is how low, bright clouds are predicted over tropical oceans, since they have important consequences for the Earth's energy budget. A climate model has been updated to improve the physical realism of the treatment of how momentum is moved up and down in the atmosphere. By comparing this updated model to real-world observations from balloon launches, it can be shown to more accurately depict atmospheric structure in trade-wind areas close to the Equator.
Koichi Sakaguchi, L. Ruby Leung, Colin M. Zarzycki, Jihyeon Jang, Seth McGinnis, Bryce E. Harrop, William C. Skamarock, Andrew Gettelman, Chun Zhao, William J. Gutowski, Stephen Leak, and Linda Mearns
Geosci. Model Dev., 16, 3029–3081, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-3029-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-3029-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
We document details of the regional climate downscaling dataset produced by a global variable-resolution model. The experiment is unique in that it follows a standard protocol designed for coordinated experiments of regional models. We found negligible influence of post-processing on statistical analysis, importance of simulation quality outside of the target region, and computational challenges that our model code faced due to rapidly changing super computer systems.
Paul A. Ullrich, Colin M. Zarzycki, Elizabeth E. McClenny, Marielle C. Pinheiro, Alyssa M. Stansfield, and Kevin A. Reed
Geosci. Model Dev., 14, 5023–5048, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-5023-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-5023-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
TempestExtremes (TE) is a multifaceted framework for feature detection, tracking, and scientific analysis of regional or global Earth system datasets. Version 2.1 of TE now provides extensive support for nodal and areal features. This paper describes the algorithms that have been added to the TE framework since version 1.0 and gives several examples of how these can be combined to produce composite algorithms for evaluating and understanding atmospheric features.
Leonardus van Kampenhout, Alan M. Rhoades, Adam R. Herrington, Colin M. Zarzycki, Jan T. M. Lenaerts, William J. Sacks, and Michiel R. van den Broeke
The Cryosphere, 13, 1547–1564, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-1547-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-1547-2019, 2019
Short summary
Short summary
A new tool is evaluated in which the climate and surface mass balance (SMB) of the Greenland ice sheet are resolved at 55 and 28 km resolution, while the rest of the globe is modelled at ~110 km. The local refinement of resolution leads to improved accumulation (SMB > 0) compared to observations; however ablation (SMB < 0) is deteriorated in some regions. This is attributed to changes in cloud cover and a reduced effectiveness of a model-specific vertical downscaling technique.
Colin M. Zarzycki, Christiane Jablonowski, James Kent, Peter H. Lauritzen, Ramachandran Nair, Kevin A. Reed, Paul A. Ullrich, David M. Hall, Mark A. Taylor, Don Dazlich, Ross Heikes, Celal Konor, David Randall, Xi Chen, Lucas Harris, Marco Giorgetta, Daniel Reinert, Christian Kühnlein, Robert Walko, Vivian Lee, Abdessamad Qaddouri, Monique Tanguay, Hiroaki Miura, Tomoki Ohno, Ryuji Yoshida, Sang-Hun Park, Joseph B. Klemp, and William C. Skamarock
Geosci. Model Dev., 12, 879–892, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-879-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-879-2019, 2019
Short summary
Short summary
We summarize the results of the Dynamical Core Model Intercomparison Project's idealized supercell test case. Supercells are storm-scale weather phenomena that are a key target for next-generation, non-hydrostatic weather prediction models. We show that the dynamical cores of most global numerical models converge between approximately 1 and 0.5 km grid spacing for this test, although differences in final solution exist, particularly due to differing grid discretizations and numerical diffusion.
Paul A. Ullrich, Christiane Jablonowski, James Kent, Peter H. Lauritzen, Ramachandran Nair, Kevin A. Reed, Colin M. Zarzycki, David M. Hall, Don Dazlich, Ross Heikes, Celal Konor, David Randall, Thomas Dubos, Yann Meurdesoif, Xi Chen, Lucas Harris, Christian Kühnlein, Vivian Lee, Abdessamad Qaddouri, Claude Girard, Marco Giorgetta, Daniel Reinert, Joseph Klemp, Sang-Hun Park, William Skamarock, Hiroaki Miura, Tomoki Ohno, Ryuji Yoshida, Robert Walko, Alex Reinecke, and Kevin Viner
Geosci. Model Dev., 10, 4477–4509, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-4477-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-4477-2017, 2017
Short summary
Short summary
Atmospheric dynamical cores are a fundamental component of global atmospheric modeling systems and are responsible for capturing the dynamical behavior of the Earth's atmosphere. To better understand modern dynamical cores, this paper aims to provide a comprehensive review of 11 dynamical cores, drawn from modeling centers and groups that participated in the 2016 Dynamical Core Model Intercomparison Project (DCMIP) workshop and summer school.
Paul A. Ullrich and Colin M. Zarzycki
Geosci. Model Dev., 10, 1069–1090, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-1069-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-1069-2017, 2017
Short summary
Short summary
Automated pointwise feature tracking is used for objective identification and tracking of meteorological features, such as extratropical cyclones, tropical cyclones and tropical easterly waves, and has emerged as an important and desirable data-processing capability in climate science. In the interest of exploring tracking functionality, this paper introduces a framework for the development of robust tracking algorithms that is useful for intercomparison and optimization of tracking schemes.
Colin M. Zarzycki, Kevin A. Reed, Julio T. Bacmeister, Anthony P. Craig, Susan C. Bates, and Nan A. Rosenbloom
Geosci. Model Dev., 9, 779–788, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-779-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-779-2016, 2016
Short summary
Short summary
This paper highlights the sensitivity of simulated tropical cyclone climatology to the choice of ocean coupling grid in high-resolution climate simulations. When computations of atmosphere–ocean interactions are carried out on the coarser grid in the system, key quantities such as surface wind drag and heat fluxes are incorrectly calculated. In the case of a coarser ocean grid, significantly stronger cyclone winds result, due to misaligned frictional vectors in the atmospheric dynamical core.
Malcolm John Roberts, Kevin A. Reed, Qing Bao, Joseph J. Barsugli, Suzana J. Camargo, Louis-Philippe Caron, Ping Chang, Cheng-Ta Chen, Hannah M. Christensen, Gokhan Danabasoglu, Ivy Frenger, Neven S. Fučkar, Shabeh ul Hasson, Helene T. Hewitt, Huanping Huang, Daehyun Kim, Chihiro Kodama, Michael Lai, Lai-Yung Ruby Leung, Ryo Mizuta, Paulo Nobre, Pablo Ortega, Dominique Paquin, Christopher D. Roberts, Enrico Scoccimarro, Jon Seddon, Anne Marie Treguier, Chia-Ying Tu, Paul A. Ullrich, Pier Luigi Vidale, Michael F. Wehner, Colin M. Zarzycki, Bosong Zhang, Wei Zhang, and Ming Zhao
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2582, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2582, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
HighResMIP2 is a model intercomparison project focussing on high resolution global climate models, that is those with grid spacings of 25 km or less in atmosphere and ocean, using simulations of decades to a century or so in length. We are proposing an update of our simulation protocol to make the models more applicable to key questions for climate variability and hazard in present day and future projections, and to build links with other communities to provide more robust climate information.
Justin L. Willson, Kevin A. Reed, Christiane Jablonowski, James Kent, Peter H. Lauritzen, Ramachandran Nair, Mark A. Taylor, Paul A. Ullrich, Colin M. Zarzycki, David M. Hall, Don Dazlich, Ross Heikes, Celal Konor, David Randall, Thomas Dubos, Yann Meurdesoif, Xi Chen, Lucas Harris, Christian Kühnlein, Vivian Lee, Abdessamad Qaddouri, Claude Girard, Marco Giorgetta, Daniel Reinert, Hiroaki Miura, Tomoki Ohno, and Ryuji Yoshida
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 2493–2507, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-2493-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-2493-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Accurate simulation of tropical cyclones (TCs) is essential to understanding their behavior in a changing climate. One way this is accomplished is through model intercomparison projects, where results from multiple climate models are analyzed to provide benchmark solutions for the wider climate modeling community. This study describes and analyzes the previously developed TC test case for nine climate models in an intercomparison project, providing solutions that aid in model development.
Skyler Graap and Colin M. Zarzycki
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 1627–1650, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-1627-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-1627-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
A key target for improving climate models is how low, bright clouds are predicted over tropical oceans, since they have important consequences for the Earth's energy budget. A climate model has been updated to improve the physical realism of the treatment of how momentum is moved up and down in the atmosphere. By comparing this updated model to real-world observations from balloon launches, it can be shown to more accurately depict atmospheric structure in trade-wind areas close to the Equator.
Mari R. Tye, Ming Ge, Jadwiga H. Richter, Ethan D. Gutmann, Allyson Rugg, Cindy L. Bruyère, Sue Ellen Haupt, Flavio Lehner, Rachel McCrary, Andrew J. Newman, and Andrew Wood
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-2326, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-2326, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
There is a perceived mismatch between the spatial scales that global climate models can produce data and that needed for water management decisions. However, poor communication of specific metrics relevant to local decisions is also a problem. We identified a potential set of water use decision metrics to assess their credibility in the Community Earth System Model v2 (CESM2). CESM2 can reliably reproduce many of these metrics and shows potential to support long-range water resource decisions.
Qi Tang, Jean-Christophe Golaz, Luke P. Van Roekel, Mark A. Taylor, Wuyin Lin, Benjamin R. Hillman, Paul A. Ullrich, Andrew M. Bradley, Oksana Guba, Jonathan D. Wolfe, Tian Zhou, Kai Zhang, Xue Zheng, Yunyan Zhang, Meng Zhang, Mingxuan Wu, Hailong Wang, Cheng Tao, Balwinder Singh, Alan M. Rhoades, Yi Qin, Hong-Yi Li, Yan Feng, Yuying Zhang, Chengzhu Zhang, Charles S. Zender, Shaocheng Xie, Erika L. Roesler, Andrew F. Roberts, Azamat Mametjanov, Mathew E. Maltrud, Noel D. Keen, Robert L. Jacob, Christiane Jablonowski, Owen K. Hughes, Ryan M. Forsyth, Alan V. Di Vittorio, Peter M. Caldwell, Gautam Bisht, Renata B. McCoy, L. Ruby Leung, and David C. Bader
Geosci. Model Dev., 16, 3953–3995, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-3953-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-3953-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
High-resolution simulations are superior to low-resolution ones in capturing regional climate changes and climate extremes. However, uniformly reducing the grid size of a global Earth system model is too computationally expensive. We provide an overview of the fully coupled regionally refined model (RRM) of E3SMv2 and document a first-of-its-kind set of climate production simulations using RRM at an economic cost. The key to this success is our innovative hybrid time step method.
Koichi Sakaguchi, L. Ruby Leung, Colin M. Zarzycki, Jihyeon Jang, Seth McGinnis, Bryce E. Harrop, William C. Skamarock, Andrew Gettelman, Chun Zhao, William J. Gutowski, Stephen Leak, and Linda Mearns
Geosci. Model Dev., 16, 3029–3081, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-3029-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-3029-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
We document details of the regional climate downscaling dataset produced by a global variable-resolution model. The experiment is unique in that it follows a standard protocol designed for coordinated experiments of regional models. We found negligible influence of post-processing on statistical analysis, importance of simulation quality outside of the target region, and computational challenges that our model code faced due to rapidly changing super computer systems.
Zexuan Xu, Erica R. Siirila-Woodburn, Alan M. Rhoades, and Daniel Feldman
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 27, 1771–1789, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-1771-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-1771-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
The goal of this study is to understand the uncertainties of different modeling configurations for simulating hydroclimate responses in the mountainous watershed. We run a group of climate models with various configurations and evaluate them against various reference datasets. This paper integrates a climate model and a hydrology model to have a full understanding of the atmospheric-through-bedrock hydrological processes.
Fadji Z. Maina, Alan Rhoades, Erica R. Siirila-Woodburn, and Peter-James Dennedy-Frank
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 26, 3589–3609, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-3589-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-3589-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
In this work, we assess the effects of end-of-century extreme dry and wet conditions on the hydrology of California. Our results, derived from cutting-edge and high-resolution climate and hydrologic models, highlight that (1) water storage will be larger and increase earlier in the year, yet the summer streamflow will decrease as a result of high evapotranspiration rates, and that (2) groundwater and lower-order streams are very sensitive to decreases in snowmelt and higher evapotranspiration.
Benjamin J. Hatchett, Alan M. Rhoades, and Daniel J. McEvoy
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 22, 869–890, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-869-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-869-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
Snow droughts, or below-average snowpack, can result from either dry conditions and/or rainfall instead of snowfall. Monitoring snow drought through time and across space is important to evaluate when snow drought onset occurred, its duration, spatial extent, and severity as well as what conditions created it or led to its termination. We present visualization techniques, including a web-based snow-drought-tracking tool, to evaluate snow droughts and assess their impacts in the western US.
Paul A. Ullrich, Colin M. Zarzycki, Elizabeth E. McClenny, Marielle C. Pinheiro, Alyssa M. Stansfield, and Kevin A. Reed
Geosci. Model Dev., 14, 5023–5048, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-5023-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-5023-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
TempestExtremes (TE) is a multifaceted framework for feature detection, tracking, and scientific analysis of regional or global Earth system datasets. Version 2.1 of TE now provides extensive support for nodal and areal features. This paper describes the algorithms that have been added to the TE framework since version 1.0 and gives several examples of how these can be combined to produce composite algorithms for evaluating and understanding atmospheric features.
Travis A. O'Brien, Mark D. Risser, Burlen Loring, Abdelrahman A. Elbashandy, Harinarayan Krishnan, Jeffrey Johnson, Christina M. Patricola, John P. O'Brien, Ankur Mahesh, Prabhat, Sarahí Arriaga Ramirez, Alan M. Rhoades, Alexander Charn, Héctor Inda Díaz, and William D. Collins
Geosci. Model Dev., 13, 6131–6148, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-6131-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-6131-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
Researchers utilize various algorithms to identify extreme weather features in climate data, and we seek to answer this question: given a
plausibleweather event detector, how does uncertainty in the detector impact scientific results? We generate a suite of statistical models that emulate expert identification of weather features. We find that the connection between El Niño and atmospheric rivers – a specific extreme weather type – depends systematically on the design of the detector.
Leonardus van Kampenhout, Alan M. Rhoades, Adam R. Herrington, Colin M. Zarzycki, Jan T. M. Lenaerts, William J. Sacks, and Michiel R. van den Broeke
The Cryosphere, 13, 1547–1564, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-1547-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-1547-2019, 2019
Short summary
Short summary
A new tool is evaluated in which the climate and surface mass balance (SMB) of the Greenland ice sheet are resolved at 55 and 28 km resolution, while the rest of the globe is modelled at ~110 km. The local refinement of resolution leads to improved accumulation (SMB > 0) compared to observations; however ablation (SMB < 0) is deteriorated in some regions. This is attributed to changes in cloud cover and a reduced effectiveness of a model-specific vertical downscaling technique.
Colin M. Zarzycki, Christiane Jablonowski, James Kent, Peter H. Lauritzen, Ramachandran Nair, Kevin A. Reed, Paul A. Ullrich, David M. Hall, Mark A. Taylor, Don Dazlich, Ross Heikes, Celal Konor, David Randall, Xi Chen, Lucas Harris, Marco Giorgetta, Daniel Reinert, Christian Kühnlein, Robert Walko, Vivian Lee, Abdessamad Qaddouri, Monique Tanguay, Hiroaki Miura, Tomoki Ohno, Ryuji Yoshida, Sang-Hun Park, Joseph B. Klemp, and William C. Skamarock
Geosci. Model Dev., 12, 879–892, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-879-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-879-2019, 2019
Short summary
Short summary
We summarize the results of the Dynamical Core Model Intercomparison Project's idealized supercell test case. Supercells are storm-scale weather phenomena that are a key target for next-generation, non-hydrostatic weather prediction models. We show that the dynamical cores of most global numerical models converge between approximately 1 and 0.5 km grid spacing for this test, although differences in final solution exist, particularly due to differing grid discretizations and numerical diffusion.
Paul A. Ullrich, Christiane Jablonowski, James Kent, Peter H. Lauritzen, Ramachandran Nair, Kevin A. Reed, Colin M. Zarzycki, David M. Hall, Don Dazlich, Ross Heikes, Celal Konor, David Randall, Thomas Dubos, Yann Meurdesoif, Xi Chen, Lucas Harris, Christian Kühnlein, Vivian Lee, Abdessamad Qaddouri, Claude Girard, Marco Giorgetta, Daniel Reinert, Joseph Klemp, Sang-Hun Park, William Skamarock, Hiroaki Miura, Tomoki Ohno, Ryuji Yoshida, Robert Walko, Alex Reinecke, and Kevin Viner
Geosci. Model Dev., 10, 4477–4509, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-4477-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-4477-2017, 2017
Short summary
Short summary
Atmospheric dynamical cores are a fundamental component of global atmospheric modeling systems and are responsible for capturing the dynamical behavior of the Earth's atmosphere. To better understand modern dynamical cores, this paper aims to provide a comprehensive review of 11 dynamical cores, drawn from modeling centers and groups that participated in the 2016 Dynamical Core Model Intercomparison Project (DCMIP) workshop and summer school.
Paul A. Ullrich and Colin M. Zarzycki
Geosci. Model Dev., 10, 1069–1090, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-1069-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-1069-2017, 2017
Short summary
Short summary
Automated pointwise feature tracking is used for objective identification and tracking of meteorological features, such as extratropical cyclones, tropical cyclones and tropical easterly waves, and has emerged as an important and desirable data-processing capability in climate science. In the interest of exploring tracking functionality, this paper introduces a framework for the development of robust tracking algorithms that is useful for intercomparison and optimization of tracking schemes.
Colin M. Zarzycki, Kevin A. Reed, Julio T. Bacmeister, Anthony P. Craig, Susan C. Bates, and Nan A. Rosenbloom
Geosci. Model Dev., 9, 779–788, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-779-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-779-2016, 2016
Short summary
Short summary
This paper highlights the sensitivity of simulated tropical cyclone climatology to the choice of ocean coupling grid in high-resolution climate simulations. When computations of atmosphere–ocean interactions are carried out on the coarser grid in the system, key quantities such as surface wind drag and heat fluxes are incorrectly calculated. In the case of a coarser ocean grid, significantly stronger cyclone winds result, due to misaligned frictional vectors in the atmospheric dynamical core.
Related subject area
Hydrological Hazards
Brief communication: Stay local or go global? On the construction of plausible counterfactual scenarios to assess flash flood hazards
Integrating susceptibility maps of multiple hazards and building exposure distribution: a case study of wildfires and floods for the province of Quang Nam, Vietnam
Tangible and intangible ex post assessment of flood-induced damage to cultural heritage
A multivariate statistical framework for mixed storm types in compound flood analysis
Invited perspectives: safeguarding the usability and credibility of flood hazard and risk assessments
Influence of building collapse on pluvial and fluvial flood inundation of metro stations in central Shanghai
Impact of drought hazards on flow regimes in anthropogenically impacted streams: an isotopic perspective on climate stress
The effect of wildfires on flood risk: a multi-hazard flood risk approach for the Ebro River basin, Spain
Modelling hazards impacting the flow regime in the Hranice Karst due to the proposed Skalička Dam
Spatiotemporal variability of flash floods and their human impacts in the Czech Republic during the 2001–2023 period
Risk of compound flooding substantially increases in the future Mekong River delta
Transferability of machine-learning-based modeling frameworks across flood events for hindcasting maximum river water depths in coastal watersheds
Floods in the Pyrenees: a global view through a regional database
Review article: Drought as a continuum – memory effects in interlinked hydrological, ecological, and social systems
Coupling WRF with HEC-HMS and WRF-Hydro for flood forecasting in typical mountainous catchments of northern China
Multi-scale hydraulic graph neural networks for flood modelling
Precursors and pathways: dynamically informed extreme event forecasting demonstrated on the historic Emilia-Romagna 2023 flood
Demonstrating the use of UNSEEN climate data for hydrological applications: case studies for extreme floods and droughts in England
Exploring the use of seasonal forecasts to adapt flood insurance premiums
Are 2D shallow-water solvers fast enough for early flood warning? A comparative assessment on the 2021 Ahr valley flood event
Water depth estimate and flood extent enhancement for satellite-based inundation maps
Probabilistic flood inundation mapping through copula Bayesian multi-modeling of precipitation products
Flood occurrence and impact models for socioeconomic applications over Canada and the United States
Model-based assessment of climate change impact on inland flood risk at the German North Sea coast caused by compounding storm tide and precipitation events
Causes of the exceptionally high number of fatalities in the Ahr valley, Germany, during the 2021 flood
An improved dynamic bidirectional coupled hydrologic–hydrodynamic model for efficient flood inundation prediction
Quantifying hazard resilience by modeling infrastructure recovery as a resource-constrained project scheduling problem
Hydrometeorological controls of and social response to the 22 October 2019 catastrophic flash flood in Catalonia, north-eastern Spain
A downward-counterfactual analysis of flash floods in Germany
Hyper-resolution flood hazard mapping at the national scale
Compound droughts under climate change in Switzerland
Brief communication: SWM – stochastic weather model for precipitation-related hazard assessments using ERA5-Land data
Text mining uncovers the unique dynamics of socio-economic impacts of the 2018–2022 multi-year drought in Germany
The value of multi-source data for improved flood damage modelling with explicit input data uncertainty treatment: INSYDE 2.0
Limited effect of the confluence angle and tributary gradient on Alpine confluence morphodynamics under intense sediment loads
The role of antecedent conditions in translating precipitation events into extreme floods at catchment scale and in a large basin context
Does a convection-permitting regional climate model bring new perspectives on the projection of Mediterranean floods?
Added value of seasonal hindcasts to create UK hydrological drought storylines
Flash flood detection via copula-based intensity–duration–frequency curves: evidence from Jamaica
Seasonal forecasting of local-scale soil moisture droughts with Global BROOK90: a case study of the European drought of 2018
How to mitigate flood events similar to the 1979 catastrophic floods in the lower Tagus
Assessing LISFLOOD-FP with the next-generation digital elevation model FABDEM using household survey and remote sensing data in the Central Highlands of Vietnam
CRHyME (Climatic Rainfall Hydrogeological Modelling Experiment): a new model for geo-hydrological hazard assessment at the basin scale
Current and future rainfall-driven flood risk from hurricanes in Puerto Rico under 1.5 and 2 °C climate change
Using integrated hydrological–hydraulic modelling and global data sources to analyse the February 2023 floods in the Umbeluzi Catchment (Mozambique)
Impact-based flood forecasting in the Greater Horn of Africa
Brief communication: A first hydrological investigation of extreme August 2023 floods in Slovenia, Europe
Multivariate regression trees as an “explainable machine learning” approach to explore relationships between hydroclimatic characteristics and agricultural and hydrological drought severity: case of study Cesar River basin
Post-wildfire sediment source and transport modeling, empirical observations, and applied mitigation: an Arizona USA case study
Review article: Towards improved drought prediction in the Mediterranean region – modeling approaches and future directions
Paul Voit and Maik Heistermann
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 4609–4615, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-4609-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-4609-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Floods have caused significant damage in the past. To prepare for such events, we rely on historical data but face issues due to rare rainfall events, lack of data and climate change. Counterfactuals, or
what ifscenarios, simulate historical rainfall in different locations to estimate flood levels. Our new study refines this by deriving more-plausible local scenarios, using the June 2024 Bavaria flood as a case study. This method could improve preparedness for future floods.
Chinh Luu, Giuseppe Forino, Lynda Yorke, Hang Ha, Quynh Duy Bui, Hanh Hong Tran, Dinh Quoc Nguyen, Hieu Cong Duong, and Matthieu Kervyn
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 4385–4408, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-4385-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-4385-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
This study presents a novel and integrated approach to assessing the climate hazards of floods and wildfires. We explore multi-hazard assessment and risk through a machine learning modeling approach. The process includes collecting a database of topography, climate, geology, environment, and building data; developing models for multi-hazard assessment and coding in the Google Earth Engine; and producing credible multi-hazard susceptibility and building exposure maps.
Claudia De Lucia, Michele Amaddii, and Chiara Arrighi
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 4317–4339, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-4317-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-4317-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
This work describes the flood damage to cultural heritage (CH) that occurred in September 2022 in central Italy. Datasets related to flood impacts on cultural heritage are rare, and this work aims at highlighting both tangible and intangible aspects and their correlation with physical characteristics of flood (i.e. water depth and flow velocity). The results show that current knowledge and datasets are inadequate for risk assessment of CH.
Pravin Maduwantha, Thomas Wahl, Sara Santamaria-Aguilar, Robert Jane, James F. Booth, Hanbeen Kim, and Gabriele Villarini
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 4091–4107, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-4091-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-4091-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
When assessing the likelihood of compound flooding, most studies ignore that it can arise from different storm types with distinct statistical characteristics. Here, we present a new statistical framework that accounts for these differences and shows how neglecting these can impact the likelihood of compound flood potential.
Bruno Merz, Günter Blöschl, Robert Jüpner, Heidi Kreibich, Kai Schröter, and Sergiy Vorogushyn
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 4015–4030, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-4015-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-4015-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Flood risk assessments help us decide how to reduce the risk of flooding. Since these assessments are based on probabilities, it is hard to check their accuracy by comparing them to past data. We suggest a new way to validate these assessments, making sure they are practical for real-life decisions. This approach looks at both the technical details and the real-world situations where decisions are made. We demonstrate its practicality by applying it to flood emergency planning.
Zhi Li, Hanqi Li, Zhibo Zhang, Chaomeng Dai, and Simin Jiang
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 3977–3990, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3977-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3977-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
This study used advanced computer simulations to investigate how earthquake-induced building collapse affects flooding of the metro stations in Shanghai. Results show that the influences of building collapse on rainfall-driven and river-driven floods are different because these two types of floods have different origination and propagation mechanisms.
Maria Magdalena Warter, Dörthe Tetzlaff, Christian Marx, and Chris Soulsby
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 3907–3924, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3907-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3907-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Streams are increasingly impacted by droughts and floods. Still, the amount of water needed for sustainable flows remains unclear and contested. A comparison of two streams in the Berlin–Brandenburg region of northeast Germany, using stable water isotopes, shows strong groundwater dependence with seasonal rainfall contributing to high/low flows. Understanding streamflow variability can help us assess the impacts of climate change on future water resource management.
Samuel Jonson Sutanto, Matthijs Janssen, Mariana Madruga de Brito, and Maria del Pozo Garcia
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 3703–3721, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3703-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3703-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
A conventional flood risk assessment only evaluates flood hazard in isolation without considering wildfires. This study, therefore, evaluates the effect of wildfires on flood risk, considering both current and future conditions for the Ebro River basin in Spain. Results show that extreme climate change increases the risk of flooding, especially when considering the effect of wildfires, highlighting the importance of adopting a multi-hazard risk management approach.
Miroslav Spano and Jaromir Riha
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 3683–3701, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3683-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3683-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The study examines the effects of hydrogeological hazard due to construction of the Skalička Dam near the Hranice Karst on groundwater discharges and water levels in the local karst formations downstream. A simplified pipe model was used to analyze the impact of two dam layouts: lateral and through-flow reservoirs. Results show that the through-flow scheme more significantly influences water levels and the discharge of mineral water, while the lateral layout has only negligible impact.
Rudolf Brázdil, Dominika Faturová, Monika Šulc Michalková, Jan Řehoř, Martin Caletka, and Pavel Zahradníček
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 3663–3682, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3663-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3663-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Flash floods belong to natural hazards that can be enhanced in frequency, intensity, and impact during recent climate change. This paper presents a complex analysis of spatiotemporal variability and human impacts (including material damage and fatalities) of flash floods in the Czech Republic for the 2001–2023 period. The analysis generally shows no statistically significant trends in the characteristics analyzed.
Melissa Wood, Ivan D. Haigh, Quan Quan Le, Hung Nghia Nguyen, Hoang Ba Tran, Stephen E. Darby, Robert Marsh, Nikolaos Skliris, and Joël J.-M. Hirschi
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 3627–3649, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3627-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3627-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We look at how compound flooding from the combination of river flooding and storm tides (storm surge and astronomical tide) may be changing over time due to climate change, with a case study of the Mekong River delta. We found that future compound flooding has the potential to flood the region more extensively and be longer lasting than compound floods today. This is useful to know because it means managers of deltas such as the Mekong can assess options for improving existing flood defences.
Maryam Pakdehi, Ebrahim Ahmadisharaf, Behzad Nazari, and Eunsaem Cho
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 3537–3559, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3537-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3537-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Machine learning (ML) algorithms have increasingly received attention for modeling flood events. However, there are concerns about the transferability of these models (their capability in predicting out-of-sample and unseen events). Here, we show that ML models can be transferable for hindcasting maximum river flood depths across extreme events (four hurricanes) in a large coastal watershed (HUC6) when informed by the spatial distribution of pertinent features and underlying physical processes.
María Carmen Llasat, Montserrat Llasat-Botija, Erika Pardo, Raül Marcos-Matamoros, and Marc Lemus-Canovas
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 3423–3443, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3423-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3423-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
This paper shows the first public and systematic dataset of flood episodes referring to the entire Pyrenees massif, at municipal scale, named PIRAGUA_flood. Of the 181 flood events (1981–2015) that produced 154 fatalities, 36 were transnational, with the eastern part of the massif most affected. Dominant weather types show a southern component flow, with a talweg on the Iberian Peninsula and a depression in the vicinity. A positive and significant trend was found in Nouvelle-Aquitaine.
Anne F. Van Loon, Sarra Kchouk, Alessia Matanó, Faranak Tootoonchi, Camila Alvarez-Garreton, Khalid E. A. Hassaballah, Minchao Wu, Marthe L. K. Wens, Anastasiya Shyrokaya, Elena Ridolfi, Riccardo Biella, Viorica Nagavciuc, Marlies H. Barendrecht, Ana Bastos, Louise Cavalcante, Franciska T. de Vries, Margaret Garcia, Johanna Mård, Ileen N. Streefkerk, Claudia Teutschbein, Roshanak Tootoonchi, Ruben Weesie, Valentin Aich, Juan P. Boisier, Giuliano Di Baldassarre, Yiheng Du, Mauricio Galleguillos, René Garreaud, Monica Ionita, Sina Khatami, Johanna K. L. Koehler, Charles H. Luce, Shreedhar Maskey, Heidi D. Mendoza, Moses N. Mwangi, Ilias G. Pechlivanidis, Germano G. Ribeiro Neto, Tirthankar Roy, Robert Stefanski, Patricia Trambauer, Elizabeth A. Koebele, Giulia Vico, and Micha Werner
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 3173–3205, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3173-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3173-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Drought is a creeping phenomenon but is often still analysed and managed like an isolated event, without taking into account what happened before and after. Here, we review the literature and analyse five cases to discuss how droughts and their impacts develop over time. We find that the responses of hydrological, ecological, and social systems can be classified into four types and that the systems interact. We provide suggestions for further research and monitoring, modelling, and management.
Sheik Umar Jam-Jalloh, Jia Liu, Yicheng Wang, and Yuchen Liu
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 3155–3172, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3155-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3155-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Our paper explores improving flood forecasting using advanced weather and hydrological models. By coupling the WRF model with WRF-Hydro and HEC-HMS, we achieved more accurate forecasts. WRF–WRF-Hydro excels for short, intense storms, while WRF–HEC-HMS is better for longer, evenly distributed storms. Our research shows how these models provide insights for adaptive atmospheric–hydrologic systems and aims to boost flood preparedness and response with more reliable, timely predictions.
Roberto Bentivoglio, Elvin Isufi, Sebastiaan Nicolas Jonkman, and Riccardo Taormina
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2621, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2621, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Deep learning methods are increasingly used as surrogates for spatio-temporal flood models but struggle with generalization and speed. Here, we propose a multi-resolution approach using graph neural networks that predicts dike breach floods across different meshes, topographies, and boundary conditions with high accuracy and up to 1000x speedups. The model also generalizes to larger, more complex case studies with just one additional simulation for fine-tuning.
Joshua Dorrington, Marta Wenta, Federico Grazzini, Linus Magnusson, Frederic Vitart, and Christian M. Grams
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 2995–3012, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-2995-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-2995-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Extreme rainfall is the leading weather-related source of damages in Europe, but it is still difficult to predict on long timescales. A recent example of this was the devastating floods in the Italian region of Emiglia Romagna in May 2023. We present perspectives based on large-scale dynamical information that allows us to better understand and predict such events.
Alison L. Kay, Nick Dunstone, Gillian Kay, Victoria A. Bell, and Jamie Hannaford
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 2953–2970, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-2953-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-2953-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Hydrological hazards affect people and ecosystems, but extremes are not fully understood due to limited observations. A large climate ensemble and simple hydrological model are used to assess unprecedented but plausible floods and droughts. The chain gives extreme flows outside the observed range: summer 2022 ~ 28 % lower and autumn 2023 ~ 42 % higher. Spatial dependence and temporal persistence are analysed. Planning for such events could help water supply resilience and flood risk management.
Viet Dung Nguyen, Jeroen Aerts, Max Tesselaar, Wouter Botzen, Heidi Kreibich, Lorenzo Alfieri, and Bruno Merz
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 2923–2937, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-2923-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-2923-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Our study explored how seasonal flood forecasts could enhance insurance premium accuracy. Insurers traditionally rely on historical data, yet climate fluctuations influence flood risk. We employed a method that predicts seasonal floods to adjust premiums accordingly. Our findings showed significant year-to-year variations in flood risk and premiums, underscoring the importance of adaptability. Despite limitations, this research aids insurers in preparing for evolving risks.
Shahin Khosh Bin Ghomash, Heiko Apel, and Daniel Caviedes-Voullième
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 2857–2874, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-2857-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-2857-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Early warning is essential to minimise the impact of flash floods. We explore the use of highly detailed flood models to simulate the 2021 flood event in the lower Ahr valley (Germany). Using very high-resolution models resolving individual streets and buildings, we produce detailed, quantitative, and actionable information for early flood warning systems. Using state-of-the-art computational technology, these models can guarantee very fast forecasts which allow for sufficient time to respond.
Andrea Betterle and Peter Salamon
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 2817–2836, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-2817-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-2817-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The study proposes a new framework, named FLEXTH, to estimate flood water depth and improve satellite-based flood monitoring using topographical data. FLEXTH is readily available as a computer code, offering a practical and scalable solution for estimating flood depth quickly and systematically over large areas. The methodology can reduce the impacts of floods and enhance emergency response efforts, particularly where resources are limited.
Francisco Javier Gomez, Keighobad Jafarzadegan, Hamed Moftakhari, and Hamid Moradkhani
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 2647–2665, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-2647-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-2647-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
This study utilizes the global copula Bayesian model averaging technique for accurate and reliable flood modeling, especially in coastal regions. By integrating multiple precipitation datasets within this framework, we can effectively address sources of error in each dataset, leading to the generation of probabilistic flood maps. The creation of these probabilistic maps is essential for disaster preparedness and mitigation in densely populated areas susceptible to extreme weather events.
Manuel Grenier, Mathieu Boudreault, David A. Carozza, Jérémie Boudreault, and Sébastien Raymond
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 2577–2595, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-2577-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-2577-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Modelling floods at the street level for large countries like Canada and the United States is difficult and very costly. However, many applications do not necessarily require that level of detail. As a result, we present a flood modelling framework built with artificial intelligence for socioeconomic studies like trend and scenarios analyses. We find for example that an increase of 10 % in average precipitation yields an increase in displaced population of 18 % in Canada and 14 % in the US.
Helge Bormann, Jenny Kebschull, Lidia Gaslikova, and Ralf Weisse
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 2559–2576, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-2559-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-2559-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Inland flooding is threatening coastal lowlands. If rainfall and storm surges coincide, the risk of inland flooding increases. We examine how such compound events are influenced by climate change. Data analysis and model-based scenario analysis show that climate change induces an increasing frequency and intensity of compounding precipitation and storm tide events along the North Sea coast. Overload of inland drainage systems will also increase if no timely adaptation measures are taken.
Belinda Rhein and Heidi Kreibich
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2066, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2066, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The 2021 flood killed 190 people in Germany, 134 of them in the Ahr valley, making it the deadliest flood in recent German history. The flash flood was extreme in terms of water levels, flow velocities and flood extent, early warning and evacuation were inadequate. Many died on the ground floor or in the street, with older and impaired individuals especially vulnerable. Clear warnings should urge people to seek safety rather than save belongings, and timely evacuations are essential.
Yanxia Shen, Zhenduo Zhu, Qi Zhou, and Chunbo Jiang
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 2315–2330, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-2315-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-2315-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We present an improved Multigrid Dynamical Bidirectional Coupled hydrologic–hydrodynamic Model (IM-DBCM) with two major improvements: (1) automated non-uniform mesh generation based on the D-infinity algorithm was implemented to identify flood-prone areas where high-resolution inundation conditions are needed, and (2) ghost cells and bilinear interpolation were implemented to improve numerical accuracy in interpolating variables between the coarse and fine grids. The improved model was reliable.
Taylor Glen Johnson, Jorge Leandro, and Divine Kwaku Ahadzie
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 2285–2302, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-2285-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-2285-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Reliance on infrastructure creates vulnerabilities to disruptions caused by natural hazards. To assess the impacts of natural hazards on the performance of infrastructure, we present a framework for quantifying resilience and develop a model of recovery based upon an application of project scheduling under resource constraints. The resilience framework and recovery model were applied in a case study to assess the resilience of building infrastructure to flooding hazards in Accra, Ghana.
Arnau Amengual, Romu Romero, María Carmen Llasat, Alejandro Hermoso, and Montserrat Llasat-Botija
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 2215–2242, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-2215-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-2215-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
On 22 October 2019, the Francolí River basin experienced a heavy precipitation event, resulting in a catastrophic flash flood. Few studies comprehensively address both the physical and human dimensions and their interrelations during extreme flash flooding. This research takes a step forward towards filling this gap in knowledge by examining the alignment among all these factors.
Paul Voit and Maik Heistermann
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 2147–2164, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-2147-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-2147-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
To identify flash flood potential in Germany, we shifted the most extreme rainfall events from the last 22 years systematically across Germany and simulated the consequent runoff reaction. Our results show that almost all areas in Germany have not seen the worst-case scenario of flood peaks within the last 22 years. With a slight spatial change of historical rainfall events, flood peaks of a factor of 2 or more would be achieved for most areas. The results can aid disaster risk management.
Günter Blöschl, Andreas Buttinger-Kreuzhuber, Daniel Cornel, Julia Eisl, Michael Hofer, Markus Hollaus, Zsolt Horváth, Jürgen Komma, Artem Konev, Juraj Parajka, Norbert Pfeifer, Andreas Reithofer, José Salinas, Peter Valent, Roman Výleta, Jürgen Waser, Michael H. Wimmer, and Heinz Stiefelmeyer
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 2071–2091, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-2071-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-2071-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
A methodology of regional flood hazard mapping is proposed, based on data in Austria, which combines automatic methods with manual interventions to maximise efficiency and to obtain estimation accuracy similar to that of local studies. Flood discharge records from 781 stations are used to estimate flood hazard patterns of a given return period at a resolution of 2 m over a total stream length of 38 000 km. The hazard maps are used for civil protection, risk awareness and insurance purposes.
Christoph Nathanael von Matt, Regula Muelchi, Lukas Gudmundsson, and Olivia Martius
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 1975–2001, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-1975-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-1975-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The simultaneous occurrence of meteorological (precipitation), agricultural (soil moisture), and hydrological (streamflow) drought can lead to augmented impacts. By analysing drought indices derived from the newest climate scenarios for Switzerland (CH2018, Hydro-CH2018), we show that with climate change the concurrence of all drought types will increase in all studied regions of Switzerland. Our results stress the benefits of and need for both mitigation and adaptation measures at early stages.
Melody Gwyneth Whitehead and Mark Stephen Bebbington
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 1929–1935, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-1929-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-1929-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Precipitation-driven hazards including floods, landslides, and lahars can be catastrophic and difficult to forecast due to high uncertainty around future weather patterns. This work presents a stochastic weather model that produces statistically similar (realistic) rainfall over long time periods at minimal computational cost. These data provide much-needed inputs for hazard simulations to support long-term, time and spatially varying risk assessments.
Jan Sodoge, Christian Kuhlicke, Miguel D. Mahecha, and Mariana Madruga de Brito
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 1757–1777, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-1757-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-1757-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We delved into the socio-economic impacts of the 2018–2022 drought in Germany. We derived a dataset covering the impacts of droughts in Germany between 2000 and 2022 on sectors such as agriculture and forestry based on newspaper articles. Notably, our study illustrated that the longer drought had a wider reach and more varied effects. We show that dealing with longer droughts requires different plans compared to shorter ones, and it is crucial to be ready for the challenges they bring.
Mario Di Bacco, Daniela Molinari, and Anna Rita Scorzini
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 1681–1696, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-1681-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-1681-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
INSYDE 2.0 is a tool for modelling flood damage to residential buildings. By incorporating ultra-detailed survey and desk-based data, it improves the reliability and informativeness of damage assessments while addressing input data uncertainties.
Théo St. Pierre Ostrander, Thomé Kraus, Bruno Mazzorana, Johannes Holzner, Andrea Andreoli, Francesco Comiti, and Bernhard Gems
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 1607–1634, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-1607-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-1607-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Mountain river confluences are hazardous during localized flooding events. A physical model was used to determine the dominant controls over mountain confluences. Contrary to lowland confluences, in mountain regions, the channel discharges and (to a lesser degree) the tributary sediment concentration control morphological patterns. Applying conclusions drawn from lowland confluences could misrepresent depositional and erosional patterns and the related flood hazard at mountain river confluences.
Maria Staudinger, Martina Kauzlaric, Alexandre Mas, Guillaume Evin, Benoit Hingray, and Daniel Viviroli
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-909, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-909, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Various combinations of antecedent conditions and precipitation result in floods of varying degrees. Antecedent conditions played a crucial role in generating even large. The key predictors and spatial patterns of antecedent conditions leading to flooding at the basin's outlet were distinct. Precipitation and soil moisture from almost all sub-catchments were important for more frequent floods. For rarer events, only the predictors of specific sub-catchments were important.
Nils Poncet, Philippe Lucas-Picher, Yves Tramblay, Guillaume Thirel, Humberto Vergara, Jonathan Gourley, and Antoinette Alias
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 1163–1183, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-1163-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-1163-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
High-resolution convection-permitting climate models (CPMs) are now available to better simulate rainstorm events leading to flash floods. In this study, two hydrological models are compared to simulate floods in a Mediterranean basin, showing a better ability of the CPM to reproduce flood peaks compared to coarser-resolution climate models. Future projections are also different, with a projected increase for the most severe floods and a potential decrease for the most frequent events.
Wilson C. H. Chan, Nigel W. Arnell, Geoff Darch, Katie Facer-Childs, Theodore G. Shepherd, and Maliko Tanguy
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 1065–1078, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-1065-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-1065-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The most recent drought in the UK was declared in summer 2022. We pooled a large sample of plausible winters from seasonal hindcasts and grouped them into four clusters based on their atmospheric circulation configurations. Drought storylines representative of what the drought could have looked like if winter 2022/23 resembled each winter circulation storyline were created to explore counterfactuals of how bad the 2022 drought could have been over winter 2022/23 and beyond.
Dino Collalti, Nekeisha Spencer, and Eric Strobl
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 873–890, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-873-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-873-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The risk of extreme rainfall events causing floods is likely increasing with climate change. Flash floods, which follow immediately after extreme rainfall, are particularly difficult to forecast and assess. We develop a decision rule for flash flood classification with data on all incidents between 2001 and 2018 in Jamaica with the statistical copula method. This decision rule tells us for any rainfall event of a certain duration how intense it has to be to likely trigger a flash flood.
Ivan Vorobevskii, Thi Thanh Luong, and Rico Kronenberg
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 681–697, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-681-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-681-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
This study presents a new version of a framework which allows us to model water balance components at any site on a local scale. Compared with the first version, the second incorporates new datasets used to set up and force the model. In particular, we highlight the ability of the framework to provide seasonal forecasts. This gives potential stakeholders (farmers, foresters, policymakers, etc.) the possibility to forecast, for example, soil moisture drought and thus apply the necessary measures.
Diego Fernández-Nóvoa, Alexandre M. Ramos, José González-Cao, Orlando García-Feal, Cristina Catita, Moncho Gómez-Gesteira, and Ricardo M. Trigo
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 609–630, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-609-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-609-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The present study focuses on an in-depth analysis of floods in the lower section of the Tagus River from a hydrodynamic perspective by means of the Iber+ numerical model and on the development of dam operating strategies to mitigate flood episodes using the exceptional floods of February 1979 as a benchmark. The results corroborate the model's capability to evaluate floods in the study area and confirm the effectiveness of the proposed strategies to reduce flood impact in the lower Tagus valley.
Laurence Hawker, Jeffrey Neal, James Savage, Thomas Kirkpatrick, Rachel Lord, Yanos Zylberberg, Andre Groeger, Truong Dang Thuy, Sean Fox, Felix Agyemang, and Pham Khanh Nam
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 539–566, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-539-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-539-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We present a global flood model built using a new terrain data set and evaluated in the Central Highlands of Vietnam.
Andrea Abbate, Leonardo Mancusi, Francesco Apadula, Antonella Frigerio, Monica Papini, and Laura Longoni
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 501–537, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-501-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-501-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
CRHyME (Climatic Rainfall Hydrogeological Modelling Experiment) is a new physically based and spatially distributed rainfall-runoff model. The main novelties consist of reproducing rainfall-induced geo-hydrological hazards such as shallow landslide, debris flow and watershed erosion through a multi-hazard approach. CRHyME was written in Python, works at a high spatial and temporal resolution, and is a tool suitable for quantifying extreme rainfall consequences at the basin scale.
Leanne Archer, Jeffrey Neal, Paul Bates, Emily Vosper, Dereka Carroll, Jeison Sosa, and Daniel Mitchell
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 375–396, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-375-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-375-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We model hurricane-rainfall-driven flooding to assess how the number of people exposed to flooding changes in Puerto Rico under the 1.5 and 2 °C Paris Agreement goals. Our analysis suggests 8 %–10 % of the population is currently exposed to flooding on average every 5 years, increasing by 2 %–15 % and 1 %–20 % at 1.5 and 2 °C. This has implications for adaptation to more extreme flooding in Puerto Rico and demonstrates that 1.5 °C climate change carries a significant increase in risk.
Luis Cea, Manuel Álvarez, and Jerónimo Puertas
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 225–243, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-225-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-225-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Mozambique is highly exposed to the impact of floods. To reduce flood damage, it is necessary to develop mitigation measures. Hydrological software is a very useful tool for that purpose, since it allows for a precise quantification of flood hazard in different scenarios. We present a methodology to quantify flood hazard in data-scarce regions, using freely available data and software, and we show its potential by analysing the flood event that took place in the Umbeluzi Basin in February 2023.
Lorenzo Alfieri, Andrea Libertino, Lorenzo Campo, Francesco Dottori, Simone Gabellani, Tatiana Ghizzoni, Alessandro Masoero, Lauro Rossi, Roberto Rudari, Nicola Testa, Eva Trasforini, Ahmed Amdihun, Jully Ouma, Luca Rossi, Yves Tramblay, Huan Wu, and Marco Massabò
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 199–224, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-199-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-199-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
This work describes Flood-PROOFS East Africa, an impact-based flood forecasting system for the Greater Horn of Africa. It is based on hydrological simulations, inundation mapping, and estimation of population and assets exposed to upcoming river floods. The system supports duty officers in African institutions in the daily monitoring of hydro-meteorological disasters. A first evaluation shows the system performance for the catastrophic floods in the Nile River basin in summer 2020.
Nejc Bezak, Panos Panagos, Leonidas Liakos, and Matjaž Mikoš
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 23, 3885–3893, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-3885-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-3885-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Extreme flooding occurred in Slovenia in August 2023. This brief communication examines the main causes, mechanisms and effects of this event. The flood disaster of August 2023 can be described as relatively extreme and was probably the most extreme flood event in Slovenia in recent decades. The economic damage was large and could amount to well over 5 % of Slovenia's annual gross domestic product; the event also claimed three lives.
Ana Paez-Trujilo, Jeffer Cañon, Beatriz Hernandez, Gerald Corzo, and Dimitri Solomatine
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 23, 3863–3883, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-3863-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-3863-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
This study uses a machine learning technique, the multivariate regression tree approach, to assess the hydroclimatic characteristics that govern agricultural and hydrological drought severity. The results show that the employed technique successfully identified the primary drivers of droughts and their critical thresholds. In addition, it provides relevant information to identify the areas most vulnerable to droughts and design strategies and interventions for drought management.
Edward Robert Schenk, Alex Wood, Allen Haden, Gabriel Baca, Jake Fleishman, and Joe Loverich
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-2163, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-2163, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Post-wildfire flooding and debris is dangerous and damaging. This study used three different sediment models to predict post-wildfire sediment sources and transport amounts downstream of the 2019 Museum Fire in northern Arizona, USA. The predictions were compared with real-world measurements of sediment that was cleaned out of the city of Flagstaff after four large floods in 2021. Results provide avenues for continued model refinement and an example of potential mitigation strategies.
Bouchra Zellou, Nabil El Moçayd, and El Houcine Bergou
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 23, 3543–3583, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-3543-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-3543-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
In this study, we underscore the critical importance of strengthening drought prediction capabilities in the Mediterranean region. We present an in-depth evaluation of current drought forecasting approaches, encompassing statistical, dynamical, and hybrid statistical–dynamical models, and highlight unexplored research opportunities. Additionally, we suggest viable directions to enhance drought prediction and early warning systems within the area.
Cited articles
AghaKouchak, A., Chiang, F., Huning, L. S., Love, C. A., Mallakpour, I., Mazdiyasni, O., Moftakhari, H., Papalexiou, S. M., Ragno, E., and Sadegh, M.: Climate extremes and compound hazards in a warming world, Annu. Rev. Earth Pl. Sc., 48, 519–548, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-earth-071719-055228, 2020. a
Angélil, O., Stone, D., Wehner, M., Paciorek, C. J., Krishnan, H., and Collins, W.: An Independent Assessment of Anthropogenic Attribution Statements for Recent Extreme Temperature and Rainfall Events, J. Climate, 30, 5–16, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0077.1, 2017. a
Ashley, S. T. and Ashley, W. S.: The storm morphology of deadly flooding events in the United States, Int. J. Climatol., 28, 493–503, https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.1554, 2008. a
Beck, H. E., van Dijk, A. I. J. M., de Roo, A., Dutra, E., Fink, G., Orth, R., and Schellekens, J.: Global evaluation of runoff from 10 state-of-the-art hydrological models, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 2881–2903, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-2881-2017, 2017. a
Bohn, T. J., Livneh, B., Oyler, J. W., Running, S. W., Nijssen, B., and Lettenmaier, D. P.: Global evaluation of MTCLIM and related algorithms for forcing of ecological and hydrological models, Agr. Forest Meteorol., 176, 38–49, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2013.03.003, 2013. a, b
Brandt, W. T., Haleakala, K., Hatchett, B. J., and Pan, M.: A Review of the Hydrologic Response Mechanisms During Mountain Rain-on-Snow, Front. Earth Sci., 10, 791760, https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2022.791760, 2022. a
Brown, R., Bartlett, P., MacKay, M., and Verseghy, D.: Evaluation of snow cover in CLASS for SnowMIP, Atmos. Ocean, 44, 223–238, https://doi.org/10.3137/ao.440302, 2006. a
Cohen, J., Ye, H., and Jones, J.: Trends and variability in rain-on-snow events, Geophys. Res. Lett., 42, 7115–7122, https://doi.org/10.1002/2015GL065320, 2015. a
Colle, B. A. and Mass, C. F.: The 5–9 February 1996 Flooding Event over the Pacific Northwest: Sensitivity Studies and Evaluation of the MM5 Precipitation Forecasts, Mon. Weather Rev., 128, 593–617, https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0493(2000)128<0593:TFFEOT>2.0.CO;2, 2000. a
Collins, M. J., Kirk, J. P., Pettit, J., DeGaetano, A. T., McCown, M. S., Peterson, T. C., Means, T. N., and Zhang, X.: Annual floods in New England (USA) and Atlantic Canada: synoptic climatology and generating mechanisms, Phys. Geogr., 35, 195–219, https://doi.org/10.1080/02723646.2014.888510, 2014. a, b
Dougherty, E. and Rasmussen, K. L.: Climatology of flood-producing storms and their associated rainfall characteristics in the United States, Mon. Weather Rev., 147, 3861–3877, https://doi.org/10.1175/MWR-D-19-0020.1, 2019. a
Dougherty, E., Morrison, R., and Rasmussen, K.: High-resolution flood precipitation and streamflow relationships in two US river basins, Meteorol. Appl., 28, e1979, https://doi.org/10.1002/met.1979, 2021. a
E3SM-Project: E3SM, GitHub [code], https://github.com/E3SM-Project/E3SM (last access: 28 September 2024), 2024. a
Eyring, V., Bony, S., Meehl, G. A., Senior, C. A., Stevens, B., Stouffer, R. J., and Taylor, K. E.: Overview of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) experimental design and organization, Geosci. Model Dev., 9, 1937–1958, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-1937-2016, 2016. a
Fasullo, J. T.: Evaluating simulated climate patterns from the CMIP archives using satellite and reanalysis datasets using the Climate Model Assessment Tool (CMATv1), Geosci. Model Dev., 13, 3627–3642, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-3627-2020, 2020. a
Freudiger, D., Kohn, I., Stahl, K., and Weiler, M.: Large-scale analysis of changing frequencies of rain-on-snow events with flood-generation potential, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 18, 2695–2709, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-18-2695-2014, 2014. a, b, c
Galewsky, J. and Sobel, A.: Moist Dynamics and Orographic Precipitation in Northern and Central California during the New Year's Flood of 1997, Mon. Weather Rev., 133, 1594–1612, https://doi.org/10.1175/MWR2943.1, 2005. a
Golaz, J.-C., Van Roekel, L. P., Zheng, X., Roberts, A. F., Wolfe, J. D., Lin, W., Bradley, A. M., Tang, Q., Maltrud, M. E., Forsyth, R. M., Zhang, C., Zhou, T., Zhang, K., Zender, C. S., Wu, M., Wang, H., Turner, A. K., Singh, B., Richter, J. H., Qin, Y., Petersen, M. R., Mametjanov, A., Ma, P.-L., Larson, V. E., Krishna, J., Keen, N. D., Jeffery, N., Hunke, E. C., Hannah, W. M., Guba, O., Griffin, B. M., Feng, Y., Engwirda, D., Di Vittorio, A. V., Dang, C., Conlon, L. M., Chen, C.-C.-J., Brunke, M. A., Bisht, G., Benedict, J. J., Asay-Davis, X. S., Zhang, Y., Zhang, M., Zeng, X., Xie, S., Wolfram, P. J., Vo, T., Veneziani, M., Tesfa, T. K., Sreepathi, S., Salinger, A. G., Eyre, J. E. J. R., Prather, M. J., Mahajan, S., Li, Q., Jones, P. W., Jacob, R. L., Huebler, G. W., Huang, X., Hillman, B. R., Harrop, B. E., Foucar, J. G., Fang, Y., Comeau, D. S., Caldwell, P. M., Bartoletti, T., Balaguru, K., Taylor, M. A., McCoy, R. B., Leung, L. R., and Bader, D. C.: The DOE E3SM Model Version 2: Overview of the Physical Model and Initial Model Evaluation, J. Adv. Model. Earth Sy., 14, e2022MS003156, https://doi.org/10.1029/2022MS003156, 2022. a
Grote, T.: A synoptic climatology of rain-on-snow flooding in Mid-Atlantic region using NCEP/NCAR Re-Analysis, Phys. Geogr., 42, 452–471, https://doi.org/10.1080/02723646.2020.1838119, 2021. a, b
Guan, B., Waliser, D. E., Ralph, F. M., Fetzer, E. J., and Neiman, P. J.: Hydrometeorological characteristics of rain-on-snow events associated with atmospheric rivers, Geophys. Res. Lett., 43, 2964–2973, https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL067978, 2016. a
Gudmundsson, L., Tallaksen, L. M., Stahl, K., Clark, D. B., Dumont, E., Hagemann, S., Bertrand, N., Gerten, D., Heinke, J., Hanasaki, N., Voss, F., and Koirala, S.: Comparing large-scale hydrological model simulations to observed runoff percentiles in Europe, J. Hydrometeorol., 13, 604–620, https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM-D-11-083.1, 2012. a
Gutmann, E. D., Rasmussen, R. M., Liu, C., Ikeda, K., Gochis, D. J., Clark, M. P., Dudhia, J., and Thompson, G.: A Comparison of Statistical and Dynamical Downscaling of Winter Precipitation over Complex Terrain, J. Climate, 25, 262–281, https://doi.org/10.1175/2011JCLI4109.1, 2012. a
Haleakala, K., Brandt, W. T., Hatchett, B. J., Li, D., Lettenmaier, D. P., and Gebremichael, M.: Watershed memory amplified the Oroville rain-on-snow flood of February 2017, PNAS Nexus, 2, pgac295, https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgac295, 2023. a
Halpert, M. S. and Bell, G. D.: Climate Assessment for 1996, B. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 78, S1–S50, https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0477-78.5s.S1, 1997. a
Harpold, A. A. and Brooks, P. D.: Humidity determines snowpack ablation under a warming climate, P. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 115, 1215–1220, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1716789115, 2018. a
Harpold, A. A., Kaplan, M. L., Klos, P. Z., Link, T., McNamara, J. P., Rajagopal, S., Schumer, R., and Steele, C. M.: Rain or snow: hydrologic processes, observations, prediction, and research needs, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 1–22, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-1-2017, 2017. a
Hartley, S. and Keables, M. J.: Synoptic associations of winter climate and snowfall variability in New England, USA, 1950–1992, Int. J. Climatol., 18, 281–298, https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1097-0088(19980315)18:3<281::AID-JOC245>3.0.CO;2-F, 1998. a
Hatchett, B. J.: Seasonal and Ephemeral Snowpacks of the Conterminous United States, Hydrology, 8, 32, https://doi.org/10.3390/hydrology8010032, 2021. a
Heggli, A., Hatchett, B., Schwartz, A., Bardsley, T., and Hand, E.: Toward snowpack runoff decision support, iScience, 25, 104240, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2022.104240, 2022. a
Henn, B., Newman, A. J., Livneh, B., Daly, C., and Lundquist, J. D.: An assessment of differences in gridded precipitation datasets in complex terrain, J. Hydrol., 556, 1205–1219, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2017.03.008, 2018. a, b, c
Hersbach, H., Bell, B., Berrisford, P., Hirahara, S., Horányi, A., Muñoz-Sabater, J., Nicolas, J., Peubey, C., Radu, R., Schepers, D., Simmons, A., Soci, C., Abdalla, S., Abellan, X., Balsamo, G., Bechtold, P., Biavati, G., Bidlot, J., Bonavita, M., De Chiara, G., Dahlgren, P., Dee, D., Diamantakis, M., Dragani, R., Flemming, J., Forbes, R., Fuentes, M., Geer, A., Haimberger, L., Healy, S., Hogan, R. J., Hólm, E., Janisková, M., Keeley, S., Laloyaux, P., Lopez, P., Lupu, C., Radnoti, G., de Rosnay, P., Rozum, I., Vamborg, F., Villaume, S., and Thépaut, J.-N.: The ERA5 global reanalysis, Q. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc., 146, 1999–2049, https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.3803, 2020. a
Hill, C., DeLuca, C., Suarez, M., and Da Silva, A.: The architecture of the Earth System Modeling Framework, Comput. Sci. Eng., 6, 18–28, https://doi.org/10.1109/MCISE.2004.1255817, 2004. a
Holton, J. R.: An Introduction to Dynamic Meteorology, 4th edn., Elsevier Acadamic Press, 535 pp., ISBN 0123540151, 2004. a
Hotovy, O., Nedelcev, O., and Jenicek, M.: Changes in rain-on-snow events in mountain catchments in the rain-snow transition zone, Hydrolog. Sci. J., 68, 572–584, https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2023.2177544, 2023. a
Jagannathan, K., Jones, A. D., and Ray, I.: The Making of a Metric: Co-Producing Decision-Relevant Climate Science, B. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 102, E1579–E1590, https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-19-0296.1, 2021. a
Jennings, K. S., Winchell, T. S., Livneh, B., and Molotch, N. P.: Spatial variation of the rain–snow temperature threshold across the Northern Hemisphere, Nat. Commun., 9, 1–9, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-03629-7, 2018. a
Jeong, D. I. and Sushama, L.: Rain-on-snow events over North America based on two Canadian regional climate models, Clim. Dynam., 50, 303–316, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-017-3609-x, 2018. a
Knowles, N., Dettinger, M. D., and Cayan, D. R.: Trends in snowfall versus rainfall in the western United States, J. Climate, 19, 4545–4559, 2006. a
Kobayashi, S., Ota, Y., Harada, Y., Ebita, A., Moriya, M., Onoda, H., Onogi, K., Kamahori, H., Kobayashi, C., Endo, H., Miyaoka, K., and Takahashi, K.: The JRA-55 reanalysis: General specifications and basic characteristics, J. Meteorol. Soc. Jpn. Ser. II, 93, 5–48, https://doi.org/10.2151/jmsj.2015-001, 2015. a
Leathers, D. J., Kluck, D. R., and Kroczynski, S.: The severe flooding event of January 1996 across north-central Pennsylvania, B. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 79, 785–798, https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0477(1998)079<0785:TSFEOJ>2.0.CO;2, 1998. a, b, c
Leathers, D. J., Malin, M. L., Kluver, D. B., Henderson, G. R., and Bogart, T. A.: Hydroclimatic variability across the Susquehanna River Basin, USA, since the 17th century, Int. J. Climatol., 28, 1615–1626, https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.1668, 2008. a
Li, D., Lettenmaier, D. P., Margulis, S. A., and Andreadis, K.: The Role of Rain-on-Snow in Flooding Over the Conterminous United States, Water Resour. Res., 55, 8492–8513, https://doi.org/10.1029/2019WR024950, 2019. a
Liang, X., Lettenmaier, D. P., Wood, E. F., and Burges, S. J.: A simple hydrologically based model of land surface water and energy fluxes for general circulation models, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 99, 14415–14428, https://doi.org/10.1029/94JD00483, 1994. a
Livneh, B., Deems, J. S., Schneider, D., Barsugli, J. J., and Molotch, N. P.: Filling in the gaps: Inferring spatially distributed precipitation from gauge observations over complex terrain, Water Resour. Res., 50, 8589–8610, https://doi.org/10.1002/2014WR015442, 2014. a
Livneh, B., Bohn, T. J., Pierce, D. W., Munoz-Arriola, F., Nijssen, B., Vose, R., Cayan, D. R., and Brekke, L.: A spatially comprehensive, hydrometeorological data set for Mexico, the U. S., and Southern Canada 1950–2013, Scientific Data, 2, 1–12, https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2015.42, 2015. a, b
López-Moreno, J. I., Pomeroy, J. W., Morán-Tejeda, E., Revuelto, J., Navarro-Serrano, F. M., Vidaller, I., and Alonso-González, E.: Changes in the frequency of global high mountain rain-on-snow events due to climate warming, Environ. Res. Lett., 16, 094021, https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac0dde, 2021. a
Lott, N., Sittel, M. C., and Ross, D.: The winter of '96–'97: West Coast flooding, Tech. Rep. 97–01, National Climatic Data Center, https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/13812 (last access: 23 September 2024), 1997. a
Lundquist, J. D., Hughes, M., Henn, B., Gutmann, E. D., Livneh, B., Dozier, J., and Neiman, P.: High-Elevation Precipitation Patterns: Using Snow Measurements to Assess Daily Gridded Datasets across the Sierra Nevada, California, J. Hydrometeorol., 16, 1773–1792, https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM-D-15-0019.1, 2015. a
Maina, F. Z. and Kumar, S. V.: Diverging Trends in Rain-On-Snow Over High Mountain Asia, Earths Future, 11, e2022EF003009, https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EF003009, 2023. a, b
Mazdiyasni, O. and AghaKouchak, A.: Substantial increase in concurrent droughts and heatwaves in the United States, P. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 112, 11484–11489, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1422945112, 2015. a
Mazurkiewicz, A. B., Callery, D. G., and McDonnell, J. J.: Assessing the controls of the snow energy balance and water available for runoff in a rain-on-snow environment, J. Hydrol., 354, 1–14, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2007.12.027, 2008. a, b
McCabe, G. J. and Clark, M. P.: Trends and variability in snowmelt runoff in the western United States, J. Hydrometeorol., 6, 476–482, 2005. a
McCabe, G. J., Clark, M. P., and Hay, L. E.: Rain-on-snow events in the western United States, B. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 88, 319–328, https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-88-3-319, 2007. a, b
McCrary, R. R., McGinnis, S., and Mearns, L. O.: Evaluation of Snow Water Equivalent in NARCCAP Simulations, Including Measures of Observational Uncertainty, J. Hydrometeorol., 18, 2425–2452, https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM-D-16-0264.1, 2017. a
McCrary, R. R., Mearns, L. O., Hughes, M., Biner, S., and Bukovsky, M. S.: Projections of North American snow from NA-CORDEX and their uncertainties, with a focus on model resolution, Climatic Change, 170, 1–25, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-021-03294-8, 2022. a
Moore, R. and Owens, I.: Controls on advective snowmelt in a maritime alpine basin, J. Appl. Meteorol. Clim., 23, 135–142, https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0450(1984)023<0135:COASIA>2.0.CO;2, 1984. a
Musselman, K. N., Lehner, F., Ikeda, K., Clark, M. P., Prein, A. F., Liu, C., Barlage, M., and Rasmussen, R.: Projected increases and shifts in rain-on-snow flood risk over western North America, Nat. Clim. Change, 8, 808–812, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0236-4, 2018. a, b, c, d
Niu, G.-Y. and Yang, Z.-L.: Effects of frozen soil on snowmelt runoff and soil water storage at a continental scale, J. Hydrometeorol., 7, 937–952, 2006. a
Parker, W. S.: Reanalyses and Observations: What's the Difference?, B. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 97, 1565–1572, https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-14-00226.1, 2016. a
Parker, W. S.: Model Evaluation: An Adequacy-for-Purpose View, Philos. Sci., 87, 457–477, https://doi.org/10.1086/708691, 2020. a
Pendergrass, A. G., Meehl, G. A., Pulwarty, R., Hobbins, M., Hoell, A., AghaKouchak, A., Bonfils, C. J. W., Gallant, A. J. E., Hoerling, M., Hoffmann, D., Kaatz, L., Lehner, F., Llewellyn, D., Mote, P., Neale, R. B., Overpeck, J. T., Sheffield, A., Stahl, K., Svoboda, M., Wheeler, M. C., Wood, A. W., and Woodhouse, C. A.: Flash droughts present a new challenge for subseasonal-to-seasonal prediction, Nat. Clim. Change, 10, 191–199, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0709-0, 2020. a
Perry, C. A.: Significant floods in the United States during the 20th century: USGS measures a century of floods, US Department of the Interior, US Geological Survey, https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2000/0024/report.pdf (last access: 23 September 2024), 2000. a
Pettett, A. and Zarzycki, C. M.: The 1996 Mid-Atlantic Winter Flood: Exploring Climate Risk through a Storyline Approach, J. Hydrometeorol., 24, 2259–2280, https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM-D-22-0146.1, 2023. a
Poschlod, B., Zscheischler, J., Sillmann, J., Wood, R. R., and Ludwig, R.: Climate change effects on hydrometeorological compound events over southern Norway, Weather and Climate Extremes, 28, 100253, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2020.100253, 2020. a, b
Pradhanang, S. M., Frei, A., Zion, M., Schneiderman, E. M., Steenhuis, T. S., and Pierson, D.: Rain-on-snow runoff events in New York, Hydrol. Process., 27, 3035–3049, https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.9864, 2013. a
Rauscher, S. A., Pal, J. S., Diffenbaugh, N. S., and Benedetti, M. M.: Future changes in snowmelt-driven runoff timing over the western US, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L16703, https://doi.org/10.1029/2008GL034424, 2008. a
Rhoades, A. M., Jones, A. D., and Ullrich, P. A.: Assessing Mountains as Natural Reservoirs With a Multimetric Framework, Earths Future, 6, 1221–1241, https://doi.org/10.1002/2017EF000789, 2018. a
Rhoades, A. M., Zarzycki, C. M., Inda-Diaz, H. A., Ombadi, M., Pasquier, U., Srivastava, A., Hatchett, B. J., Dennis, E., Heggli, A., McCrary, R., McGinnis, S., Rahimi-Esfarjani, S., Slinskey, E., Ullrich, P. A., Wehner, M., and Jones, A. D.: Recreating the California New Year's Flood Event of 1997 in a Regionally Refined Earth System Model, J. Adv. Model. Earth Sy., 15, e2023MS003793, https://doi.org/10.1029/2023MS003793, 2023. a
Sharma, S., Gomez, M., Keller, K., Nicholas, R. E., and Mejia, A.: Regional Flood Risk Projections under Climate Change, J. Hydrometeorol., 22, 2259–2274, https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM-D-20-0238.1, 2021. a
Shepherd, T. G., Boyd, E., Calel, R. A., Chapman, S. C., Dessai, S., Dima-West, I. M., Fowler, H. J., James, R., Maraun, D., Martius, O., Senior, C. A., Sobel, A. H., Stainforth, D. A., Tett, S. F. B., Trenberth, K. E., van den Hurk, B. J. J. M., Watkins, N. W., Wilby, R. L., and Zenghelis, D. A.: Storylines: an alternative approach to representing uncertainty in physical aspects of climate change, Climatic Change, 151, 555–571, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-018-2317-9, 2018. a
Siirila-Woodburn, E. R., Rhoades, A. M., Hatchett, B. J., Huning, L. S., Szinai, J., Tague, C., Nico, P. S., Feldman, D. R., Jones, A. D., Collins, W. D., and Kaatz, L.: A low-to-no snow future and its impacts on water resources in the western United States, Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, 2, 800–819, https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-021-00219-y, 2021. a, b, c
Singh, P., Spitzbart, G., Hübl, H., and Weinmeister, H.: Hydrological response of snowpack under rain-on-snow events: a field study, J. Hydrol., 202, 1–20, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-1694(97)00004-8, 1997. a
Sood, A. and Smakhtin, V.: Global hydrological models: a review, Hydrolog. Sci. J., 60, 549–565, 2015. a
Sterle, K., Hatchett, B. J., Singletary, L., and Pohll, G.: Hydroclimate Variability in Snow-Fed River Systems: Local Water Managers' Perspectives on Adapting to the New Normal, B. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 100, 1031–1048, https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-18-0031.1, 2019. a
St. George, S. and Mudelsee, M.: The weight of the flood-of-record in flood frequency analysis, J. Flood Risk Manag., 12, e12512, https://doi.org/10.1111/jfr3.12512, 2019. a
Sun, J., Zhang, K., Wan, H., Ma, P.-L., Tang, Q., and Zhang, S.: Impact of Nudging Strategy on the Climate Representativeness and Hindcast Skill of Constrained EAMv1 Simulations, J. Adv. Model. Earth Sy., 11, 3911–3933, https://doi.org/10.1029/2019MS001831, 2019. a
Surfleet, C. G. and Tullos, D.: Variability in effect of climate change on rain-on-snow peak flow events in a temperate climate, J. Hydrol., 479, 24–34, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2012.11.021, 2013. a
Suriano, Z. J.: North American rain-on-snow ablation climatology, Climate Res., 87, 133–145, https://doi.org/10.3354/cr01687, 2022. a
Suriano, Z. J., Henderson, G. R., and Leathers, D. J.: Discharge responses associated with rapid snow cover ablation events in the Susquehanna and Wabash River basins, Phys. Geogr., 41, 70–82, https://doi.org/10.1080/02723646.2019.1674558, 2020. a
Suriano, Z. J., Henderson, G. R., Arthur, J., Harper, K., and Leathers, D. J.: Atmospheric Drivers Associated with Extreme Snow Ablation and Discharge Events in the Susquehanna River Basin: A Climatology, J. Appl. Meteorol. Clim., 62, 1497–1510, https://doi.org/10.1175/JAMC-D-23-0042.1, 2023. a, b, c
Tarouilly, E., Li, D., and Lettenmaier, D. P.: Western U. S. Superfloods in the Recent Instrumental Record, Water Resour. Res., 57, e2020WR029287, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020WR029287, 2021. a
Toomey, M., Cantwell, M., Colman, S., Cronin, T., Donnelly, J., Giosan, L., Heil, C., Korty, R., Marot, M., and Willard, D.: The Mighty Susquehanna – Extreme Floods in Eastern North America During the Past Two Millennia, Geophys. Res. Lett., 46, 3398–3407, https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL080890, 2019. a
US Army Corps of Engineers: Non-Structural Flood Damage Reduction Within the Corps of Engineers: What Districts Are Doing, Tech. Rep. ADA629409, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA629409.pdf (last access: 23 September 2024), 2001. a
Villarini, G. and Smith, J. A.: Flood peak distributions for the eastern United States, Water Resour. Res., 46, W06504, https://doi.org/10.1029/2009WR008395, 2010. a
Wachowicz, L. J., Mote, T. L., and Henderson, G. R.: A rain on snow climatology and temporal analysis for the eastern United States, Phys. Geogr., 41, 54–69, https://doi.org/10.1080/02723646.2019.1629796, 2020. a, b
Wayand, N. E., Lundquist, J. D., and Clark, M. P.: Modeling the influence of hypsometry, vegetation, and storm energy on snowmelt contributions to basins during rain-on-snow floods, Water Resour. Res., 51, 8551–8569, https://doi.org/10.1002/2014WR016576, 2015. a
Williams, A. P., Abatzoglou, J. T., Gershunov, A., Guzman-Morales, J., Bishop, D. A., Balch, J. K., and Lettenmaier, D. P.: Observed Impacts of Anthropogenic Climate Change on Wildfire in California, Earths Future, 7, 892–910, https://doi.org/10.1029/2019EF001210, 2019. a
Williams, A. P., Cook, E. R., Smerdon, J. E., Cook, B. I., Abatzoglou, J. T., Bolles, K., Baek, S. H., Badger, A. M., and Livneh, B.: Large contribution from anthropogenic warming to an emerging North American megadrought, Science, 368, 314–318, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaz9600, 2020. a
Würzer, S., Jonas, T., Wever, N., and Lehning, M.: Influence of initial snowpack properties on runoff formation during rain-on-snow events, J. Hydrometeorol., 17, 1801–1815, https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM-D-15-0181.1, 2016. a, b
Xia, Y., Mitchell, K., Ek, M., Sheffield, J., Cosgrove, B., Wood, E., Luo, L., Alonge, C., Wei, H., Meng, J., Livneh, B., Lettenmaier, D., Koren, V., Duan, Q., Mo, K., Fan, Y., and Mocko, D.: Continental-scale water and energy flux analysis and validation for the North American Land Data Assimilation System project phase 2 (NLDAS-2): 1. Intercomparison and application of model products, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 117, D03109, https://doi.org/10.1029/2011JD016048, 2012. a
Yarnal, B., Johnson, D. L., Frakes, B. J., Bowles, G. I., and Pascale, P.: The Flood of '96 and its socioeconomic impacts in the Susquehanna River Basin, J. Am. Water Resour. As., 33, 1299–1312, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-1688.1997.tb03554.x, 1997. a
Ye, H., Yang, D., and Robinson, D.: Winter rain on snow and its association with air temperature in northern Eurasia, Hydrol. Process., 22, 2728–2736, https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.7094, 2008. a
Yu, G., Wright, D. B., and Davenport, F. V.: Diverse Physical Processes Drive Upper-Tail Flood Quantiles in the US Mountain West, Geophys. Res. Lett., 49, e2022GL098855, https://doi.org/10.1029/2022GL098855, 2022. a
Zarzycki, C. M.: zarzycki/betacast: Betacast (v0.2), Zenodo [code], https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6047091, 2023. a
Zarzycki, C. M. and Jablonowski, C.: Experimental Tropical Cyclone Forecasts Using a Variable-Resolution Global Model, Mon. Weather Rev., 143, 4012–4037, https://doi.org/10.1175/MWR-D-15-0159.1, 2015. a
Zarzycki, C. M., Ascher, B. D., Rhoades, A. M., and McCrary, R. R.: Algorithmically Detected Rain-on-Snow Flood Events in Different Climate Datasets: A Case Study of the Susquehanna River Basin, Zenodo [code and data set], https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10412332, 2024. a, b
Zhang, S., Zhang, K., Wan, H., and Sun, J.: Further improvement and evaluation of nudging in the E3SM Atmosphere Model version 1 (EAMv1): simulations of the mean climate, weather events, and anthropogenic aerosol effects, Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 6787–6816, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-6787-2022, 2022. a
Zheng, H., Yang, Z.-L., Lin, P., Wei, J., Wu, W.-Y., Li, L., Zhao, L., and Wang, S.: On the Sensitivity of the Precipitation Partitioning Into Evapotranspiration and Runoff in Land Surface Parameterizations, Water Resour. Res., 55, 95–111, https://doi.org/10.1029/2017WR022236, 2019. a
Short summary
We developed an automated workflow to detect rain-on-snow events, which cause flooding in the northeastern United States, in climate data. Analyzing the Susquehanna River basin, this technique identified known events affecting river flow. Comparing four gridded datasets revealed variations in event frequency and severity, driven by different snowmelt and runoff estimates. This highlights the need for accurate climate data in flood management and risk prediction for these compound extremes.
We developed an automated workflow to detect rain-on-snow events, which cause flooding in the...
Altmetrics
Final-revised paper
Preprint