Return period of extreme rainfall substantially decreases under 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C warming: a case study for Uttarakhand, India

Kumari, Savitri; Haustein, Karsten; Javid, Hammad; Burton, Chad; Allen, Myles R.; Paltan, Homero; Dadson, Simon; Otto, Friederike E. L.

doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ab0bce

Title: Return period of extreme rainfall substantially decreases under 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C warming: a case study for Uttarakhand, India

Journal Article · Wed Apr 17 00:00:00 EDT 2019 · Environmental Research Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab0bce· OSTI ID:1529940

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Univ. of Oxford (United Kingdom). School of Geography and the Environment
Univ. of Oxford (United Kingdom). Environmental Change Inst.
Univ. of Oxford (United Kingdom). Environmental Change Inst.; Univ. of Oxford (United Kingdom). Dept. of Physics

In June 2013, Uttarakhand experienced a hydro-meteorological disaster due to a 4 d extreme precipitation event of return period more than 100 years, claiming thousands of lives and causing enormous damage to infrastructure. Using the weather@home climate modelling system and its Half a degree Additional warming, Prognosis and Projected Impacts simulations, this study investigates the change in the return period of similar events in a 1.5 °C and 2 °C warmer world, compared to current and pre-industrial levels. We find that the likelihood of such extreme precipitation events will significantly increase under both future scenarios. We also estimate the change in extreme river flow at the Ganges; finding a considerable increase in the risk of flood events. Our results also suggest that until now, anthropogenic aerosols may have effectively counterbalanced the otherwise increased meteorological flood risk due to greenhouse gas (GHG) induced warming. Disentangling the response due to GHGs and aerosols is required to analyses the changes in future rainfall in the South Asia monsoon region. More research with other climate models is also necessary to make sure these results are robust.

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Research Organization:: Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE

OSTI ID:: 1529940

Journal Information:: Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 14, Issue 4; ISSN 1748-9326

Publisher:: IOP PublishingCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 13 works

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