The latest U.N. report on climate change documented researchers’ efforts that have shown some measures of global warming are now unavoidable, and current research efforts are focusing on mitigation and adaptation strategies.
The latest U.N. report on climate change documented researchers’ efforts that have shown some measures of global warming are now unavoidable, and current research efforts are focusing on mitigation and adaptation strategies. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration describes this as a global problem, felt on local scales. Likewise, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration researchers are providing the data, tools and information to better understand and prepare for climate change. One of the effects being impacted by the warming climate is a change in the frequency of flash flooding events, as well as the locations in which they most often occur.
A research team led by the University of Oklahoma, with the NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory and collaborators at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, have created simulations from coupled climate and hydrologic models that demonstrate widespread increases in the occurrences of flash flooding events across most of the United States.
The study is led by Yang Hong, a professor of hydrology and remote sensing in the School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Sciences and in the School of Meteorology at OU. He is the director of the Hydrometeorology and Remote Sensing Laboratory and the founding director of the hydrology and water security online master’s program at OU. The research team’s findings are published in Nature: Communications Earth and Environment. Zhi Li, a doctoral student with the HyDROS Lab, is the first author.
“This study builds upon the state-of-the-art model (EF5/CREST) that is jointly developed by researchers with OU, NASA, and NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory and has initiated collaboration with National Center for Atmospheric Research climate scientists,” said Li. “It realizes the concept of ‘Digital Twin in Earth System Science,’ in which one is our living climate and the other one is our future. Climate change never became so real to me until we successfully collaborated on such research.”
Read more at University of Oklahoma
Image: Climate modeling published in Nature: Communications Earth and Environment demonstrate widespread increases in the occurrences of flash flooding events across most of the United States. (Credit: Photo by Joe Lawton. Credit NOAA NSSL)
