Assessing the impacts of climate change on extreme hydrometeorological events using an integrated WRF and WRF-Hydro framework

This study investigates the impacts of climate change on extreme hydrometeorological events using an integrated modeling framework that couples the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model with WRF-Hydro. WRF is a numerical weather prediction model that simulates a wide range of atmospheric phenomena, while WRF-Hydro is a physics-based hydrological modeling system that represents hydrological states and their spatiotemporal distributions and interactions. The primary advantage of this integrated approach is the consistent sharing of land surface and boundary conditions between atmospheric and hydrological simulations. This research focuses on Typhoon Hinnamnor, which brought record-breaking rainfall and severe flooding to South Korea in 2022. Multiple WRF simulations with various microphysics schemes are conducted to determine the optimal configuration for retrospective meteorological simulations. Hydrological simulations driven by both ground-based and WRF-generated forcings are analyzed to evaluate hydrological responses at multiple gauging stations along the main channel and local tributaries. Additionally, extreme hydrometeorological conditions under climate change scenarios, projected by the WRF and WRF-Hydro models, are estimated using key meteorological and hydrological variables, including typhoon trajectory, precipitation, pressure, wind speeds, soil moisture, and streamflow. The discussion highlights the advantages and challenges of the integrated modeling approach, as well as the impacts of climate change on hydrometeorological variables across different spatial and temporal scales. Furthermore, we explore strategies for assessing the combined effects of climate and land cover changes using a high-resolution, fully interactive modeling setup.