Rapid attribution of the August 2016 flood-inducing extreme precipitation in south Louisiana to climate change

van der Wiel, Karin; Kapnick, Sarah B.; van Oldenborgh, Geert Jan; Whan, Kirien; Philip, Sjoukje; Vecchi, Gabriel A.; Singh, Roop K.; Arrighi, Julie; Cullen, Heidi

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-897-2017

Articles | Volume 21, issue 2

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 897–921, 2017

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-897-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 897–921, 2017

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-897-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 21, issue 2

Research article 14 Feb 2017

Research article | 14 Feb 2017

Rapid attribution of the August 2016 flood-inducing extreme precipitation in south Louisiana to climate change

Karin van der Wiel et al.

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Final revised paper (published on 14 Feb 2017)
Preprint (discussion started on 06 Sep 2016)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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RC1: 'useful reading', Anonymous Referee #1, 19 Oct 2016
- AC1: 'Reply to referee #1', Karin van der Wiel, 20 Oct 2016
RC2: 'Thorough analysis', Anonymous Referee #2, 20 Nov 2016
- AC2: 'Reply to referee #2', Karin van der Wiel, 09 Dec 2016

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (further review by Editor) (06 Jan 2017) by Hannah Cloke

AR by Anna Wenzel on behalf of the Authors (16 Jan 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (19 Jan 2017) by Hannah Cloke

Short summary

During August 2016, heavy precipitation led to devastating floods in south Louisiana, USA. Here, we analyze the climatological statistics of the precipitation event, as defined by its 3-day total over 12–14 August. Using observational data and high-resolution global coupled model experiments, we find for a comparable event on the central US Gulf Coast an average return period of about 30 years and the odds being increased by at least 1.4 since 1900 due to anthropogenic climate change.