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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (937351)	5/28/2016 10:40:30 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575761

The changing nature of flooding across the central United States Iman Mallakpour & Gabriele Villarini Journal name:Nature Climate Change Volume: 5, Pages:250–254 Year published:(2015) DOI:doi:10.1038/nclimate2516 Received 29 September 2014 Accepted 18 December 2014 Published online In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, flooding has taken a devastating societal and economic toll on the central United States, contributing to dozens of fatalities and causing billions of dollars in damage 1, 2. As a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture (the Clausius–Clapeyron relation), a pronounced increase in intense rainfall events is included in models of future climate 3. Therefore, it is crucial to examine whether the magnitude and/or frequency of flood events is remaining constant or has been changing over recent decades. If either or both of these attributes have changed over time, it is imperative that we understand the underlying mechanisms that are responsible. Here, we show that while observational records (774 stream gauge stations) from the central United States present limited evidence of significant changes in the magnitude of floodpeaks, strong evidence points to an increasing frequency of flooding. These changes in flood hydrology result from changes in both seasonal rainfall and temperature across this region. nature.com = Observed U.S. Trends in Heavy Precipitation One measure of heavy precipitation events is a two-day precipitation total that is exceeded on average only once in a 5-year period, also known as the once-in-five-year event. As this extreme precipitation index for 1901-2012 shows, the occurrence of such events has become much more common in recent decades. Changes are compared to the period 1901-1960, and do not include Alaska or Hawai‘i. (Figure source: adapted from Kunkel et al. 2013 7). nca2014.globalchange.gov Anthropogenic contribution to global occurrence of heavy-precipitation and high-temperature extremes nature.com