Impact of Climate Change on Extreme Rainfall across the United States
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 18, Issue 10
Abstract
Changes in climate may alter extreme rainfall intensity in most regions. In order to incorporate potential future changes, tools for planning and design should be capable of considering nonstationary climate conditions. In this study, potential changes in intensity-duration-frequency (IDF) curves, which are often used for assessment of extreme rainfall events, were explored using climate model historic runs, reanalysis runs, and future climate projections. The concept of the adjustment factor, which represents the general ability of climate models in representing the reanalysis data that is a reasonable estimate of actual gridded historical climate at the model grid scale, was applied to investigate potential impacts of climate change on IDF curves. For most of the study regions, future climate projections suggested an increase in the intensity of extreme storms for a given return period and duration with strong regional variations. The results also revealed the dependence of the adjustment factor values on return period and storm durations as related to the characteristics of extreme rainfalls, as it varied significantly with region, storm duration, and return period.
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Acknowledgments
This study was partly supported by the start-up grant from the University of Wyoming. Bill Forsee assisted in extracting climate model data.
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Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 18 • Issue 10 • October 2013
Pages: 1301 - 1309
Copyright
© 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 21, 2011
Accepted: Oct 17, 2012
Published online: Oct 18, 2012
Discussion open until: Mar 18, 2013
Published in print: Oct 1, 2013
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