Attribution of extreme rainfall from Hurricane Harvey, August 2017
During August 25–30, 2017, Hurricane Harvey stalled over Texas and caused extreme precipitation, particularly over Houston and the surrounding area on August 26–28. This resulted in extensive flooding with over 80 fatalities and large economic costs. It was an extremely rare event: the return period...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
IOP Publishing
2017-01-01
|
| Series: | Environmental Research Letters |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa9ef2 |
| _version_ | 1797748190701682688 |
|---|---|
| author | Geert Jan van Oldenborgh Karin van der Wiel Antonia Sebastian Roop Singh Julie Arrighi Friederike Otto Karsten Haustein Sihan Li Gabriel Vecchi Heidi Cullen |
| author_facet | Geert Jan van Oldenborgh Karin van der Wiel Antonia Sebastian Roop Singh Julie Arrighi Friederike Otto Karsten Haustein Sihan Li Gabriel Vecchi Heidi Cullen |
| author_sort | Geert Jan van Oldenborgh |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | During August 25–30, 2017, Hurricane Harvey stalled over Texas and caused extreme precipitation, particularly over Houston and the surrounding area on August 26–28. This resulted in extensive flooding with over 80 fatalities and large economic costs. It was an extremely rare event: the return period of the highest observed three-day precipitation amount, 1043.4 mm 3dy ^−1 at Baytown, is more than 9000 years (97.5% one-sided confidence interval) and return periods exceeded 1000 yr (750 mm 3dy ^−1 ) over a large area in the current climate. Observations since 1880 over the region show a clear positive trend in the intensity of extreme precipitation of between 12% and 22%, roughly two times the increase of the moisture holding capacity of the atmosphere expected for 1 °C warming according to the Clausius–Clapeyron (CC) relation. This would indicate that the moisture flux was increased by both the moisture content and stronger winds or updrafts driven by the heat of condensation of the moisture. We also analysed extreme rainfall in the Houston area in three ensembles of 25 km resolution models. The first also shows 2 × CC scaling, the second 1 × CC scaling and the third did not have a realistic representation of extreme rainfall on the Gulf Coast. Extrapolating these results to the 2017 event, we conclude that global warming made the precipitation about 15% (8%–19%) more intense, or equivalently made such an event three (1.5–5) times more likely. This analysis makes clear that extreme rainfall events along the Gulf Coast are on the rise. And while fortifying Houston to fully withstand the impact of an event as extreme as Hurricane Harvey may not be economically feasible, it is critical that information regarding the increasing risk of extreme rainfall events in general should be part of the discussion about future improvements to Houston’s flood protection system. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-12T16:01:21Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-236ec6df730a4cd0a1178d03f6ec5a62 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1748-9326 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-12T16:01:21Z |
| publishDate | 2017-01-01 |
| publisher | IOP Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Environmental Research Letters |
| spelling | doaj.art-236ec6df730a4cd0a1178d03f6ec5a622023-08-09T14:36:30ZengIOP PublishingEnvironmental Research Letters1748-93262017-01-01121212400910.1088/1748-9326/aa9ef2Attribution of extreme rainfall from Hurricane Harvey, August 2017Geert Jan van Oldenborgh0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6898-9535Karin van der Wiel1https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9365-5759Antonia Sebastian2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4309-2561Roop Singh3Julie Arrighi4https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4714-4514Friederike Otto5https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8166-5917Karsten Haustein6https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3126-7851Sihan Li7https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2479-8665Gabriel Vecchi8https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5085-224XHeidi Cullen9https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6976-2631Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), R&D Weather and Climate Models , De Bilt, The Netherlands; Author to whom any correspondence should be addressed.Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), R&D Weather and Climate Models , De Bilt, The NetherlandsFaculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology , Delft, The Netherlands; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Rice University , Houston, TX, United States of AmericaRed Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre , The Hague, The NetherlandsRed Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre , The Hague, The NetherlandsSchool of Geography and the Environment and Department of Physics, University of Oxford , Oxford, United KingdomSchool of Geography and the Environment and Department of Physics, University of Oxford , Oxford, United KingdomSchool of Geography and the Environment and Department of Physics, University of Oxford , Oxford, United KingdomPrinceton University, Princeton , NJ, United States of AmericaClimate Central , Princeton, NJ, United States of AmericaDuring August 25–30, 2017, Hurricane Harvey stalled over Texas and caused extreme precipitation, particularly over Houston and the surrounding area on August 26–28. This resulted in extensive flooding with over 80 fatalities and large economic costs. It was an extremely rare event: the return period of the highest observed three-day precipitation amount, 1043.4 mm 3dy ^−1 at Baytown, is more than 9000 years (97.5% one-sided confidence interval) and return periods exceeded 1000 yr (750 mm 3dy ^−1 ) over a large area in the current climate. Observations since 1880 over the region show a clear positive trend in the intensity of extreme precipitation of between 12% and 22%, roughly two times the increase of the moisture holding capacity of the atmosphere expected for 1 °C warming according to the Clausius–Clapeyron (CC) relation. This would indicate that the moisture flux was increased by both the moisture content and stronger winds or updrafts driven by the heat of condensation of the moisture. We also analysed extreme rainfall in the Houston area in three ensembles of 25 km resolution models. The first also shows 2 × CC scaling, the second 1 × CC scaling and the third did not have a realistic representation of extreme rainfall on the Gulf Coast. Extrapolating these results to the 2017 event, we conclude that global warming made the precipitation about 15% (8%–19%) more intense, or equivalently made such an event three (1.5–5) times more likely. This analysis makes clear that extreme rainfall events along the Gulf Coast are on the rise. And while fortifying Houston to fully withstand the impact of an event as extreme as Hurricane Harvey may not be economically feasible, it is critical that information regarding the increasing risk of extreme rainfall events in general should be part of the discussion about future improvements to Houston’s flood protection system.https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa9ef2extreme precipitationtropical cycloneattributionclimate change |
| spellingShingle | Geert Jan van Oldenborgh Karin van der Wiel Antonia Sebastian Roop Singh Julie Arrighi Friederike Otto Karsten Haustein Sihan Li Gabriel Vecchi Heidi Cullen Attribution of extreme rainfall from Hurricane Harvey, August 2017 Environmental Research Letters extreme precipitation tropical cyclone attribution climate change |
| title | Attribution of extreme rainfall from Hurricane Harvey, August 2017 |
| title_full | Attribution of extreme rainfall from Hurricane Harvey, August 2017 |
| title_fullStr | Attribution of extreme rainfall from Hurricane Harvey, August 2017 |
| title_full_unstemmed | Attribution of extreme rainfall from Hurricane Harvey, August 2017 |
| title_short | Attribution of extreme rainfall from Hurricane Harvey, August 2017 |
| title_sort | attribution of extreme rainfall from hurricane harvey august 2017 |
| topic | extreme precipitation tropical cyclone attribution climate change |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa9ef2 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT geertjanvanoldenborgh attributionofextremerainfallfromhurricaneharveyaugust2017 AT karinvanderwiel attributionofextremerainfallfromhurricaneharveyaugust2017 AT antoniasebastian attributionofextremerainfallfromhurricaneharveyaugust2017 AT roopsingh attributionofextremerainfallfromhurricaneharveyaugust2017 AT juliearrighi attributionofextremerainfallfromhurricaneharveyaugust2017 AT friederikeotto attributionofextremerainfallfromhurricaneharveyaugust2017 AT karstenhaustein attributionofextremerainfallfromhurricaneharveyaugust2017 AT sihanli attributionofextremerainfallfromhurricaneharveyaugust2017 AT gabrielvecchi attributionofextremerainfallfromhurricaneharveyaugust2017 AT heidicullen attributionofextremerainfallfromhurricaneharveyaugust2017 |