As our climate system climbs through its current warming path, temperature and precipitation are greatly affected also in their extremes. There is a general concern that climate change may also affect the magnitude and frequency of river floods and, as a consequence, that existing and planned hydraulic structures and flood defences may fail to provide the required protection level in the future. While a wide body of literature on the detection of flood changes is available, the identification of their underlying causes (i.e. flood change attribution) is still debated.
In this session, we invite contributions on works on how floods of different kinds (e.g., fluvial, pluvial, urban, coastal, …) and their impacts on the landscape are related to climate extremes (of precipitation and temperature) and how these extremes are related to large-scale predictors (e.g. climate oscillations, teleconnections) on different spatio-temporal scales. This session invites contributions on (but not limited to) the following questions:
- What are the large-scale predictors of climate extremes that are relevant to river floods and their change?
- What is the role of spatio-temporal scales when mapping climate to flood extremes?
- How are changes in mountain climate affecting downstream floods?
- How do changes in thunderstorms and convective precipitation alter flood risk associated with river floods?
- How are climate extremes and river floods of different types related to each other?
- What are the most useful methodologies for flood change attribution?
- What are the most useful datasets for flood change attribution?
Mapping climate to flood extremes is of interest from both theoretical and practical perspectives. From a theoretical point of view, a better understanding of the connection between climate extremes and floods will help to attribute flood changes to their underlying climatic drivers. From a practical point of view, the identification of climate indices relevant to flood extremes may allow to better incorporate climate projections in the assessment of flood hazard and risk, leading to a more informed selection of adaptation measures compared to what is now possible.