Evidence of shorter more extreme rainfalls and increased flood variability under climate change

Increases in extreme rainfall intensities as a result of climate change pose a great risk due to the possibility of increases in pluvial flooding, particularly in urban and developed areas. But evidence is emerging that the observed increases in extreme rainfall are not resulting in universal increases in flooding. Indeed, on a global scale, studies consistently find more gauge stations with decreasing rather than increasing trends in the annual maxima flood magnitude. Here, we aim to improve our understanding of how rainfall and streamflow extremes are changing and why floods are not always observed to increase despite increases in rainfall extremes. To do so, we examine trends in streamflow events using 2776 stations from the Global Runoff Data Centre, with events chosen to isolate the impact of changes to their respective rainfall and antecedent soil moisture. The analysis is limited to stations with 30 years or more of active record with the majority of stations in North America, Europe, Brazil, Oceania, and southern Africa. Consistent with physical reasoning, for more frequent events such as the annual maxima, it is found the peak 1-day rainfall event intensity is increasing approximately a rate of 6-7%/degrees C, with rarer event intensities increasing at a rate exceeding the Clausius-Clapeyron relation. We find that storm volumes are not increasing as greatly as the peak rainfall and storm durations are decreasing, pointing to an intensification of rainfall events and a peakier temporal pattern. While rainfall is intensifying, the magnitude of frequent floods (those expected to occur on average once per year) are in general decreasing, particularly in tropical and arid regions of the world. We find that this is likely due to a dominance of drying antecedent soil moisture conditions. However, the magnitude of rarer floods has, on average been increasing. We suggest this is because, for these rarer events, the increase in rainfall outweighs the decrease in soil moisture. Our results point to a worst of both world's scenario where small floods, responsible for filling our water supplies, are decreasing, while the large flood events which pose a risk to life and infrastructure, are increasing.

Automated summary

Increases in extreme rainfall intensities due to climate change may lead to increased risk of pluvial flooding, especially in urban areas. However, these increases in extreme rainfall do not always result in universal increases in flooding, and the trends vary across different regions. The study finds that while rainfall intensity is intensifying, the magnitude of frequent floods is generally decreasing, particularly in tropical and arid regions, while the magnitude of rarer floods is increasing.