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Higher emissions scenarios lead to more extreme flooding in the United States
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Higher emissions scenarios lead to more extreme flooding in the United States

Hanbeen Kim and Gabriele Villarini
Nature communications, Vol.15(1), 237
01/03/2024
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-44415-4
PMCID: PMC10764829
PMID: 38172133
url
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-44415-4View
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

Understanding projected changes in flooding across the contiguous United States (CONUS) helps increase our capability to adapt to and mitigate against this hazard. Here, we assess future changes in flooding across CONUS using outputs from 28 global climate models and four scenarios of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6. We find that CONUS is projected to experience an overall increase in flooding, especially under higher emission scenarios; there are subregional differences, with the Northeast and Southeast (Great Plains of the North and Southwest) showing higher tendency towards increasing (decreasing) flooding due to changes in flood processes at the seasonal scale. Moreover, even though trends may not be detected in the historical period, these projected future trends highlight the current needs for incorporating climate change in the future infrastructure designs and management of the water resources.

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