El Niño increases the risk of lower Mississippi River flooding

Abstract Mississippi River floods rank among the costliest climate-related disasters in the world. Improving flood predictability, preparedness, and response at seasonal to decadal time-scales requires an understanding of the climatic controls that govern flood occurrence. Linking flood occurrence t...

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Autores principales:	Samuel E. Munoz, Sylvia G. Dee
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Nature Portfolio 2017
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/c645b586c1754d0e80318db5f3daa415
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:c645b586c1754d0e80318db5f3daa4152021-12-02T16:06:16ZEl Niño increases the risk of lower Mississippi River flooding10.1038/s41598-017-01919-62045-2322https://doaj.org/article/c645b586c1754d0e80318db5f3daa4152017-05-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-01919-6https://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract Mississippi River floods rank among the costliest climate-related disasters in the world. Improving flood predictability, preparedness, and response at seasonal to decadal time-scales requires an understanding of the climatic controls that govern flood occurrence. Linking flood occurrence to persistent modes of climate variability like the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has proven challenging, due in part to the limited number of high-magnitude floods available for study in the instrumental record. To augment the relatively short instrumental record, we use output from the Community Earth System Model (CESM) Last Millennium Ensemble (LME) to investigate the dynamical controls on discharge extremes of the lower Mississippi River. We show that through its regional influence on surface water storage, the warm phase of ENSO preconditions the lower Mississippi River to be vulnerable to flooding. In the 6–12 months preceding a flood, El Niño generates a positive precipitation anomaly over the lower Mississippi basin that gradually builds up soil moisture and reduces the basin’s infiltration capacity, thereby elevating the risk of a major flood during subsequent rainstorms. Our study demonstrates how natural climate variability mediates the formation of extreme floods on one of the world’s principal commercial waterways, adding significant predictive ability to near- and long-term forecasts of flood risk.Samuel E. MunozSylvia G. DeeNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 7, Iss 1, Pp 1-7 (2017)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Samuel E. Munoz Sylvia G. Dee El Niño increases the risk of lower Mississippi River flooding
description	Abstract Mississippi River floods rank among the costliest climate-related disasters in the world. Improving flood predictability, preparedness, and response at seasonal to decadal time-scales requires an understanding of the climatic controls that govern flood occurrence. Linking flood occurrence to persistent modes of climate variability like the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has proven challenging, due in part to the limited number of high-magnitude floods available for study in the instrumental record. To augment the relatively short instrumental record, we use output from the Community Earth System Model (CESM) Last Millennium Ensemble (LME) to investigate the dynamical controls on discharge extremes of the lower Mississippi River. We show that through its regional influence on surface water storage, the warm phase of ENSO preconditions the lower Mississippi River to be vulnerable to flooding. In the 6–12 months preceding a flood, El Niño generates a positive precipitation anomaly over the lower Mississippi basin that gradually builds up soil moisture and reduces the basin’s infiltration capacity, thereby elevating the risk of a major flood during subsequent rainstorms. Our study demonstrates how natural climate variability mediates the formation of extreme floods on one of the world’s principal commercial waterways, adding significant predictive ability to near- and long-term forecasts of flood risk.
format	article
author	Samuel E. Munoz Sylvia G. Dee
author_facet	Samuel E. Munoz Sylvia G. Dee
author_sort	Samuel E. Munoz
title	El Niño increases the risk of lower Mississippi River flooding
title_short	El Niño increases the risk of lower Mississippi River flooding
title_full	El Niño increases the risk of lower Mississippi River flooding
title_fullStr	El Niño increases the risk of lower Mississippi River flooding
title_full_unstemmed	El Niño increases the risk of lower Mississippi River flooding
title_sort	el niño increases the risk of lower mississippi river flooding
publisher	Nature Portfolio
publishDate	2017
url	https://doaj.org/article/c645b586c1754d0e80318db5f3daa415
work_keys_str_mv	AT samuelemunoz elninoincreasestheriskoflowermississippiriverflooding AT sylviagdee elninoincreasestheriskoflowermississippiriverflooding
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El Niño increases the risk of lower Mississippi River flooding

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