Climate influences on flood probabilities across Europe
The link between streamflow extremes and climatology has been widely studied in recent decades. However, a study investigating the effect of large-scale circulation variations on the distribution of seasonal discharge extremes at the European level is missing. Here we fit a climate-informed generali...
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ftcopernicus:oai:publications.copernicus.org:hess70812 2023-05-15T17:34:43+02:00 Climate influences on flood probabilities across Europe Steirou, Eva Gerlitz, Lars Apel, Heiko Sun, Xun Merz, Bruno 2019-03-07 application/pdf https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-1305-2019 https://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/23/1305/2019/ eng eng doi:10.5194/hess-23-1305-2019 https://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/23/1305/2019/ eISSN: 1607-7938 Text 2019 ftcopernicus https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-1305-2019 2019-12-24T09:49:25Z The link between streamflow extremes and climatology has been widely studied in recent decades. However, a study investigating the effect of large-scale circulation variations on the distribution of seasonal discharge extremes at the European level is missing. Here we fit a climate-informed generalized extreme value (GEV) distribution to about 600 streamflow records in Europe for each of the standard seasons, i.e., to winter, spring, summer and autumn maxima, and compare it with the classical GEV distribution with parameters invariant in time. The study adopts a Bayesian framework and covers the period 1950 to 2016. Five indices with proven influence on the European climate are examined independently as covariates, namely the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), the east Atlantic pattern (EA), the east Atlantic–western Russian pattern (EA/WR), the Scandinavia pattern (SCA) and the polar–Eurasian pattern (POL). It is found that for a high percentage of stations the climate-informed model is preferred to the classical model. Particularly for NAO during winter, a strong influence on streamflow extremes is detected for large parts of Europe (preferred to the classical GEV distribution for 46 % of the stations). Climate-informed fits are characterized by spatial coherence and form patterns that resemble relations between the climate indices and seasonal precipitation, suggesting a prominent role of the considered circulation modes for flood generation. For certain regions, such as northwestern Scandinavia and the British Isles, yearly variations of the mean seasonal climate indices result in considerably different extreme value distributions and thus in highly different flood estimates for individual years that can also persist for longer time periods. Text North Atlantic North Atlantic oscillation Copernicus Publications: E-Journals Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 23 3 1305 1322 |
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English |
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The link between streamflow extremes and climatology has been widely studied in recent decades. However, a study investigating the effect of large-scale circulation variations on the distribution of seasonal discharge extremes at the European level is missing. Here we fit a climate-informed generalized extreme value (GEV) distribution to about 600 streamflow records in Europe for each of the standard seasons, i.e., to winter, spring, summer and autumn maxima, and compare it with the classical GEV distribution with parameters invariant in time. The study adopts a Bayesian framework and covers the period 1950 to 2016. Five indices with proven influence on the European climate are examined independently as covariates, namely the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), the east Atlantic pattern (EA), the east Atlantic–western Russian pattern (EA/WR), the Scandinavia pattern (SCA) and the polar–Eurasian pattern (POL). It is found that for a high percentage of stations the climate-informed model is preferred to the classical model. Particularly for NAO during winter, a strong influence on streamflow extremes is detected for large parts of Europe (preferred to the classical GEV distribution for 46 % of the stations). Climate-informed fits are characterized by spatial coherence and form patterns that resemble relations between the climate indices and seasonal precipitation, suggesting a prominent role of the considered circulation modes for flood generation. For certain regions, such as northwestern Scandinavia and the British Isles, yearly variations of the mean seasonal climate indices result in considerably different extreme value distributions and thus in highly different flood estimates for individual years that can also persist for longer time periods. |
format |
Text |
author |
Steirou, Eva Gerlitz, Lars Apel, Heiko Sun, Xun Merz, Bruno |
spellingShingle |
Steirou, Eva Gerlitz, Lars Apel, Heiko Sun, Xun Merz, Bruno Climate influences on flood probabilities across Europe |
author_facet |
Steirou, Eva Gerlitz, Lars Apel, Heiko Sun, Xun Merz, Bruno |
author_sort |
Steirou, Eva |
title |
Climate influences on flood probabilities across Europe |
title_short |
Climate influences on flood probabilities across Europe |
title_full |
Climate influences on flood probabilities across Europe |
title_fullStr |
Climate influences on flood probabilities across Europe |
title_full_unstemmed |
Climate influences on flood probabilities across Europe |
title_sort |
climate influences on flood probabilities across europe |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-1305-2019 https://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/23/1305/2019/ |
genre |
North Atlantic North Atlantic oscillation |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic North Atlantic oscillation |
op_source |
eISSN: 1607-7938 |
op_relation |
doi:10.5194/hess-23-1305-2019 https://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/23/1305/2019/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-1305-2019 |
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Hydrology and Earth System Sciences |
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23 |
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3 |
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1305 |
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1322 |
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1766133639134838784 |