Climate Variability and Floods—A Global Review

Abstract

There is a strong inter-annual and inter-decadal variability in time series of flood-related variables, such as intense precipitation, high river discharge, flood magnitude, and flood loss at a range of spatial scales. Perhaps part of this variability is random or chaotic, but it is quite natural to seek driving factors, in a statistical sense. It is likely that climate variability (atmosphere–ocean oscillation) track plays an important role in the interpretation of the variability of flood-related characteristics, globally and, even more so, in several regions. The aim of this review paper is to create an inventory of information on spatially and temporally organized links of various climate-variability drivers with variability of characteristics of water abundance reported in scientific literature for a range of scales, from global to local. The climate variability indices examined in this paper are: El Niño-Southern Oscillations (ENSO), North Atlantic Oscillations (NAO), Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO), and Pacific Decadal Oscillations (PDO). A meta-analysis of results from many studies reported in scientific literature was carried out. The published results were collected and classified into categories after regions, climate variability modes, as well as flood-related variables: precipitation, river flow, and flood losses.

Impacts of climatic variability on northward flowing rivers in North America, using a paired basin approach

“…This agrees well with Archfield et al (2016), where climate indices (Pacific Decadal Oscillation, North Atlantic Oscillation, and Atlantic Multi‐decadal Oscillation) did not show widespread and strong correlations with floods (aside from New England) based on 345 streamflow stations across the USA. Nevertheless, Kundzewicz et al (2019) emphasized that random component of climate variability as well as the variability of flood‐related variables is strong. As global temperature rises, ocean‐atmospheric oscillations and climatic variability could intensify and their impacts could become more pronounced and detectable in hydroclimatic time series.…”

“…River hydrology responds directly to these variations. Quasiperiodic climate variability may also affect river water abundance through ocean‐atmospheric oscillations ranging from several years to several decades (Kundzewicz et al, 2019). El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the most dominant feature of quasiperiodic ocean–atmosphere oscillations, preceded only by seasonal cycle (Glantz, 1996), and have the greatest effects on worldwide climate (Yeh et al, 2009).…”

Inundation Analysis of the Oda River Basin in Japan during the Flood Event of 6–7 July 2018 Utilizing Local and Global Hydrographic Data

“…Unpredictable rainfall behavior over complex urban systems and changing environments may cause an increased risk of flooding. Previous studies have suggested that the frequency of extreme, short duration rainfall events is increasing, such that there may be a higher chance of increased magnitudes and frequencies of flooding [1,3]. Projection reports also suggest that flood frequency may increase, especially over southeast Asia [4,5].…”

Climate Variability Indices—A Guided Tour

“…All these modes are of considerable and broad interest, also in climate impact studies related to teleconnections, i.e., relationships between climate variations in places located far away from each other. For example, Kundzewicz et al [1,2] analyzed links of indices of oscillation in the ocean-atmosphere system with abundance of water (intense precipitation, high river discharge, floods), while Kundzewicz et al [3] studied links with global annual temperature and Norel et al [4] examined relationships with river runoff using machine learning.…”

“…The present paper deals with a subset of the above oscillation modes. We discuss indices of ENSO, the NAO, the PDO, and the AMO that have been found important in studies of links between abundance of water (intense precipitation and floods) and climate variability as well as global annual temperature [1,3].…”