title: Complex picture for likelihood of ENSO-driven flood hazard.
abstract: El Niño and La Niña events, the extremes of ENSO climate variability, influence river flow and flooding at the global scale. Estimates of the historical probability of extreme (high or low) precipitation are used to provide vital information on the likelihood of adverse impacts during extreme ENSO events. However, the nonlinearity between precipitation and flood magnitude motivates the need for estimation of historical probabilities using analysis of hydrological data sets. Here, this analysis is undertaken using the ERA-20CM-R river flow reconstruction for the twentieth century. Our results show that the likelihood of increased or decreased flood hazard during ENSO events is much more complex than is often perceived and reported; probabilities vary greatly across the globe, with large uncertainties inherent in the data and clear differences when comparing the hydrological analysis to precipitation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Geography and Environmental Science, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6AB, UK.|Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6BB, UK.|European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, Reading RG2 9AX, UK.
authors.forename: R
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-0707-3993
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Emerton
authors.affiliation: Department of Geography and Environmental Science, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6AB, UK.|Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6BB, UK.
authors.forename: H L
authors.initials: HL
authors.lastname: Cloke
authors.affiliation: Department of Geography and Environmental Science, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6AB, UK.
authors.forename: E M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Stephens
authors.affiliation: Department of Geography and Environmental Science, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6AB, UK.|European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, Reading RG2 9AX, UK.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Zsoter
authors.affiliation: National Centre for Atmospheric Science, Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6BB, UK.
authors.forename: S J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Woolnough
authors.affiliation: European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, Reading RG2 9AX, UK.
authors.forename: F
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-1766-2898
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Pappenberger