Extreme rainfall will become much stronger and more frequent

"Centenary floods"

In an article published in the American Geophysical Union's Earth's Future journal,

scientists have concluded - globalWarming has a profound effect on both the intensity and frequency of extreme rainfall and flood events—what climate scientists in the United States call “centennials.”

The term "hundred-year flood" isa statistical designation for an unlikely event. Statistically, the probability that a “100-year flood” will occur in any 100-year period is about 63%, and not 100%. However, climatologists said that the term itself will soon become obsolete, because extreme precipitation will occur much more often and will be more likely to lead to catastrophic consequences.

An example of “hundred-year floods” —Greatflood in California in 1862, along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers in 1993, in Houston due to Hurricane Harvey in 2017.

Climate change consequences

The study predicts a sharp increase inprecipitation for the entire continental United States. However, in some areas the situation will be worse than in others. For example, on the West Coast and in the southeast of the country.

Floods will become more frequentThere will also be more casualties. Scientists came to these conclusions using climate models, water physics and demographic data. For example, climate change coupled with population growth will also increase the number of people at risk of “100-year floods”—by an estimated 50 million in the continental United States.

And even in the absence of climate changepopulation growth will expose an additional 34 million people to such floods. A combination of factors will exacerbate the situation in regions that were still outside the floodplains and were sparsely populated.

New data

Previously, extreme precipitation forecasts were based onbased on limited historical data that goes back only 100 years. In a new study, scientists used a modeling technique to create a set of likely future events. 

It is important to note, the authors write, that flood riskin the US will increase significantly over the next 30 years, even with moderate warming, i.e. a 1.5 to 2.5 degrees Celsius increase in global temperatures. They predict that over the next 30 years, more than 20 million people will be affected by a “100-year flood.”

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