Can aerosols improve urban flood forecasting? A case study of 2015 Chennai extreme event

Paul, Oscar; Nithila Devi, N.; Konduru, Rakesh Teja; Kuiry, Soumendra Nath; Shrestha, Kundan Lal; Sarangi, Chandan

doi:10.5194/nhess-26-3749-2026

Articles | Volume 26, issue 8

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-26-3749-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-26-3749-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 26, issue 8

Research article

|

12 Aug 2026

Research article |

| 12 Aug 2026

Can aerosols improve urban flood forecasting? A case study of 2015 Chennai extreme event

Oscar Paul, N. Nithila Devi, Rakesh Teja Konduru, Soumendra Nath Kuiry, Kundan Lal Shrestha, and Chandan Sarangi

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-26-3749-2026-supplement

Data sets

MERRA-2 inst3\_ 3d\_aer\_Nv: 3d, 3-Hourly, Instantaneous, Model-Level, Assimilation, Aerosol Mixing Ratio V5.12.4 GMAO https://doi.org/10.5067/LTVB4GPCOTK2

Accumulated rainfall data for all sensitivity experiments O. Paul https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17897013

GPM IMERG Final precipitation L3 half hourly 0.1 degree x 0.1 degree V07 G. J. Huffman, E. F. Stocker, D. T. Bolvin, et al. https://doi.org/10.5067/GPM/IMERG/3B-HH/07

Download

Article (6136 KB)
Full-text XML

Short summary

Despite computationally intensive high-resolution weather models, accurate spatio-temporal rainfall simulation at complex urban scales remains challenging. Using the December 2015 Chennai 1-in-100-year flood as a case study, we show that explicit aerosol representation significantly influences rainfall simulations, improving flood extent mapping by up to 50 %. Our approach resolves urban-scale aerosol microphysics and can be systematically extended to other extreme events across regions.