Winter floods in Britain are connected to atmospheric rivers

Lavers, David A.; Allan, Richard P.; Wood, Eric F.; Villarini, Gabriele; Brayshaw, David; Wade, Andrew J.

doi:10.1029/2011gl049783

Cited by 334 publications

(357 citation statements)

References 27 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

342

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The magenta line A-B defines a cross-section projection for (3). The pink segments over the pre-cold-frontal LLJ (with a-b) marked the limits with profiles for (2) fields) to determine whether an AR caused the extremes (e.g., Ralph et al, 2006;Lavers et al, 2011;Neiman et al, 2011).…”

Section: Methods To Identify Atmospheric Riversmentioning

confidence: 99%

Atmospheric rivers: a mini-review

2014

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Atmospheric rivers (ARs) are narrow regions responsible for the majority of the poleward water vapor transport across the midlatitudes. They are characterized by high water vapor content and strong low level winds, and form a part of the broader warm conveyor belt of extratropical cyclones. Although the meridional water vapor transport within ARs is critical for water resources, ARs can also cause disastrous floods especially when encountering mountainous terrain. They were labeled as atmospheric rivers in the 1990s, and have since become a well-studied feature of the midlatitude climate. We briefly review the conceptual model, the methods used to identify them, their main climatological characteristics, their impacts, the predictive ability of numerical weather prediction models, their relationship with large-scale ocean-atmosphere dynamics, possible changes under future climates, and some future challenges.

show abstract

Section: Methods To Identify Atmospheric Riversmentioning

confidence: 99%

Atmospheric rivers: a mini-review

2014

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…These frontal precipitation events can cause severe flooding in the regions over which they pass (Mills et al 1995, Pitt 2008, Lavers et al 2011). Pfahl and Wernli (2012) showed that in these same regions, up to 80 per cent of precipitation extremes (based on the 99th percentile of precipitation) are associated with extratropical cyclones.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A global evaluation of fronts and precipitation in the ACCESS model

Catto¹,

Jakob²,

Nicholls³

2013

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

How global precipitation will change in the future is of great socio-economic importance. It is therefore vital that climate models are able to adequately simulate the characteristics of precipitation and the individual precipitation events. Fronts play an important role in providing precipitation and they can be associated with heavy rain and flooding.In this paper the ACCESS1.3 atmosphere model is evaluated in terms of frontal and non-frontal precipitation. An objective front identification method is applied to data from reanalysis and the model. The fronts are then linked to daily precipitation from observational estimates and the model. The proportion of precipitation associated with fronts and the average intensity of precipitation associated with fronts are then calculated and compared.The frequency of fronts and the proportion of precipitation associated with fronts are well captured by the model. The intensity of precipitation when a front is present is underestimated by the model in most regions, consistent with many previous studies. Decomposing the total precipitation error into components associated with the frequency and intensity of both frontal and non-frontal precipitation shows that the non-frontal precipitation errors contribute the most to the total error, and that there are compensating errors in the model. This regime-and process-based method of model evaluation provides a useful tool to gain deeper understanding into the sources of precipitation errors in climate models.

show abstract

“…An atmospheric river established by mid November and became entrained in the westerly circulation 19 . During the month of November in Ireland, and in particular 16-20th November in Cumbria, record-breaking rainfall was recorded in both countries 20 , resulting in widespread flooding, with property loss, economic disruption and a small number of fatalities.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Changing social contracts in climate-change adaptation

et al. 2012

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Risks from extreme weather events are mediated through state, civil society and individual action 1,2 . We propose evolving social contracts as a primary mechanism by which adaptation to climate change proceeds. We use a natural experiment of policy and social contexts of the UK and Ireland affected by the same meteorological event and resultant flooding in November 2009. We analyse data from policy documents and from household surveys of 356 residents in western Ireland and northwest England. We find significant differences between perceptions of individual responsibility for protection across the jurisdictions and between perceptions of future risk from populations directly affected by flooding events. These explain differences in stated willingness to take individual adaptive actions when state support retrenches. We therefore show that expectations for state protection are critical in mediating impacts and promoting longer-term adaptation. We argue that making social contracts explicit may smooth pathways to effective and legitimate adaptation.It is clear that climate change will not be experienced as a smooth change in mean conditions, but as a series of extreme weather events, possibly leading to crises in policy and planning. These can offer opportunities for investment and legislation while there is public support and attention 3,4 . Understanding how events shape the direction of adaptation requires a theory of the process of change.Social contract theory has a long history in political philosophy. It explains how governments and responsibility evolve over time as emerging risks pose challenges to the established consensus concerning the role of the state. Social contract theory is contested: there are profound debates on the balance of power between civil society and the state. Recent applications suggest that adaptation and resilience could lead to renegotiation of social contracts because of the co-evolving nature of risks and multi-actor influences on change 5 .

show abstract

Winter floods in Britain are connected to atmospheric rivers

Cited by 334 publications

References 27 publications

Atmospheric rivers: a mini-review

Atmospheric rivers: a mini-review

A global evaluation of fronts and precipitation in the ACCESS model

Changing social contracts in climate-change adaptation

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About