Climate Predictability of Extreme Floods in the United States
- Lead PI: Dr. Upmanu Lall
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Unit Affiliation: International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI)
- August 2010 - July 2014
- Inactive
- North America ; United States
- Project Type: Research
DESCRIPTION: The project will use the hypothesis that river basins aggregate the spatio-temporal climate signal in terms of synoptic and seasonal atmospheric moisture transport to allow empirical connections to be made between slowly varying climate fields, and the severity and incidence of floods. This would allow the development of empirical methods for season predictions.
OUTCOMES: Demonstrated that tropical moisture exports from the Golf of Mexico region appear to be the source of floods in the Ohio River Valley and found the anomalous atmospheric circulation patterns responsible.