The newly formulated Attribution and Risk research program is by its very nature focused on the impacts of weather and climate on our society. A key piece of research on business risk and the emergence of climate risk perfectly highlighted this.
Welcome to the first Weather and Climate Interactions RP report. The new program name is simply a result of rationalising CLEX’s continuing research program under new headings that more clearly delineate the focus of the work we do.
The largest rivers on Earth are not on the ground, but in the sky. Our new study, published in Environmental Research Letters, showed that nine out of ten of the most expensive floods in New Zealand (2007-2017) occurred during an Atmospheric River event, and seven to all ten of the top ten most extreme rainfall events at eleven different locations occurred during Atmospheric Rivers.
This time last year Kim Reid was planning a Euro-adventure where she would attend a summer school in the Swiss Alps, attend EGU, visit Reading and the Met Office and explore some castles on the side. Now she and her supervisor joke that if case numbers stay low, Kim might be able to visit a university in the same city.
Despite what has been a very challenging year, the Extreme Rainfall research program continues to produce high-quality research, develop deep and wide datasets, extend the reach of our citizen science, and has seen our researchers continue to achieve at a national and international level.
CLEX researchers explore the challenges of identifying atmospheric rivers and find that detecting these events is highly variable according to resolution, and choice of the integrated water vapour transport thresholds. The uncertainties in a single detection method and data parameters may be as large as uncertainties across AR detection methodologies.
Kim Reid describes everything you ever wanted to know about atmospheric rivers, and then some. Front, Warm Conveyor Belt, Atmospheric River, Tropical Moisture Exports and Flexible Tubes. Are these phrases describing different phenomenon or are they merely alternative names for same system?
Jonathan Wille (University of Grenoble, France). West Antarctic surface melt triggered by atmospheric rivers.
In her first blog Kim Reid looks at a small part of the future of science. Multimedia figures, technology and open access journals may provide a glimpse of what is to come.