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Rhoades, Alan M., Zarzycki, Colin M., Inda-Diaz, Héctor A., Ombadi, Mohammed, Pasquier, Ulysse 
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8390-9062, Srivastava, Abhishekh, Hatchett, Benjamin J., Dennis, Eli, Heggli, Anne, McCrary, Rachel, McGinnis, Seth, Rahimi-Esfarjani, Stefan, Slinskey, Emily, Ullrich, Paul A., Wehner, Michael and Jones, Andrew D.
(2023)
Recreating the California New Year's flood event of 1997 in a regionally refined earth system model.
Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 15 (10).
ISSN 1942-2466
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Abstract
The 1997 New Year's flood event was the most costly in California's history. This compound extreme event was driven by a category 5 atmospheric river that led to widespread snowmelt. Extreme precipitation, snowmelt, and saturated soils produced heavy runoff causing widespread inundation in the Sacramento Valley. This study recreates the 1997 flood using the Regionally Refined Mesh capabilities of the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (RRM-E3SM) under prescribed ocean conditions. Understanding the processes causing extreme events informs practical efforts to anticipate and prepare for such events in the future, and also provides a rich context to evaluate model skill in representing extremes. Three California-focused RRM grids, with horizontal resolution refinement of 14 km down to 3.5 km, and six forecast lead times, 28 December 1996 at 00Z through 30 December 1996 at 12Z, are assessed for their ability to recreate the 1997 flood. Planetary to synoptic scale atmospheric circulations and integrated vapor transport are weakly influenced by horizontal resolution refinement over California. Topography and mesoscale circulations, such as the Sierra barrier jet, are better represented at finer horizontal resolutions resulting in better estimates of storm total precipitation and storm duration snowpack changes. Traditional time-series and causal analysis frameworks are used to examine runoff sensitivities state-wide and above major reservoirs. These frameworks show that horizontal resolution plays a more prominent role in shaping reservoir inflows, namely the magnitude and time-series shape, than forecast lead time, 2-to-4 days prior to the 1997 flood onset.
| Item Type: | Article |
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| Additional Information: | Funding Information: This study was primarily funded by the Director, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research of the U.S. Department of Energy Regional and Global Model Analysis (RGMA) Program. Authors Inda-Diaz, Ombadi, Pasquier, Rhoades, Srivastava, Ullrich, and Wehner were funded by “the Calibrated and Systematic Characterization, Attribution and Detection of Extremes (CASCADE)” Science Focus Area (award no. DE-AC02-05CH11231). Authors Dennis, Jones, McCrary, McGinnis, Rahimi-Esfarjani, Rhoades, Slinskey, Srivastava, Ullrich, and Zarzycki were funded by the “An Integrated Evaluation of the Simulated Hydroclimate System of the Continental US” project (award no. DE-SC0016605). Authors Hatchett and Heggli received support from the Nevada Department of Transportation under agreement P296-22-803. We would also like to acknowledge Smitha Buddhavarapu and Kripa Jagannathan for the considerable time and energy they provided in facilitating scientist-stakeholder discussions in the HyperFACETS project. The facilitated discussions played a key role in helping us to choose the 1997 flood event as a featured storyline within the HyperFACETS project. |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | earth system model,extremes,flood,hydrometeorology,rain-on-snow,regionally refined mesh,global and planetary change,environmental chemistry,earth and planetary sciences(all) ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/2300/2306 |
| UEA Research Groups: | University of East Anglia Schools > Faculty of Science > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research |
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| Depositing User: | LivePure Connector |
| Date Deposited: | 13 Nov 2023 18:01 |
| Last Modified: | 27 Nov 2024 10:41 |
| URI: | https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/93627 |
| DOI: | 10.1029/2023MS003793 |
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