- Title
- Tropical cyclone contribution to extreme rainfall over southwest Pacific Island nations
- Creator
- Deo, Anil; Chand, Savin; Ramsay, Hamish; Holbrook, Neil; McGree, Simon
- Date
- 2021
- Type
- Text; Journal article
- Identifier
- http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/176585
- Identifier
- vital:15145
- Identifier
-
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-021-05680-5
- Identifier
- ISBN:0930-7575 (ISSN)
- Abstract
- Southwest Pacific nations are among some of the worst impacted and most vulnerable globally in terms of tropical cyclone (TC)-induced flooding and accompanying risks. This study objectively quantifies the fractional contribution of TCs to extreme rainfall (hereafter, TC contributions) in the context of climate variability and change. We show that TC contributions to extreme rainfall are substantially enhanced during active phases of the Madden–Julian Oscillation and by El Niño conditions (particularly over the eastern southwest Pacific region); this enhancement is primarily attributed to increased TC activity during these event periods. There are also indications of increasing intensities of TC-induced extreme rainfall events over the past few decades. A key part of this work involves development of sophisticated Bayesian regression models for individual island nations in order to better understand the synergistic relationships between TC-induced extreme rainfall and combinations of various climatic drivers that modulate the relationship. Such models are found to be very useful for not only assessing probabilities of TC- and non-TC induced extreme rainfall events but also evaluating probabilities of extreme rainfall for cases with different underlying climatic conditions. For example, TC-induced extreme rainfall probability over Samoa can vary from ~ 95 to ~ 75% during a La Niña period, if it coincides with an active or inactive phase of the MJO, and can be reduced to ~ 30% during a combination of El Niño period and inactive phase of the MJO. Several other such cases have been assessed for different island nations, providing information that have potentially important implications for planning and preparing for TC risks in vulnerable Pacific Island nations. © 2021, The Author(s). *Please note that there are multiple authors for this article therefore only the name of the first 5 including Federation University Australia affiliate “Anil Deo and Savin Chand” is provided in this record**
- Publisher
- Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
- Relation
- Climate Dynamics Vol. 56, no. 11-12 (2021), p. 3967-3993
- Rights
- All metadata describing materials held in, or linked to, the repository is freely available under a CC0 licence
- Rights
- https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
- Rights
- Copyright © The Author(s) 2021
- Rights
- Open Access
- Subject
- 0401 Atmospheric Sciences; 0405 Oceanography; 0406 Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience; El Nino Southern oscillation; Extreme rainfall; Madden Julian oscillation; Southwest Pacific island nations; Tropical cyclones
- Full Text
- Reviewed
- Funder
- This work is supported through the funding from the NextGen 1.5 project, which is an Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade initiative. Prof Neil J. Holbrook is supported by funding from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (CE170100023) and the Australian Government National Environmental Science Programme (NSEP) Earth Systems and Climate Change Hub. The authors thank Mr. Nikotemo Iona of Tuvalu Meteorological Services, and Ms. Olivia Yu and Dr. Alexandre Peltier of Météo France, New Caledonia, for providing rainfall data for their respective countries. The authors also thank Prof Suzana Camargo of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (Columbia University) for providing tropical cyclone potential intensity data.
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