Return levels of hydrologic droughts under climate change

Mondal, Arpita and Mujumdar, PP (2015) Return levels of hydrologic droughts under climate change. In: ADVANCES IN WATER RESOURCES, 75 . pp. 67-79.

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Abstract

Developments in the statistical extreme value theory, which allow non-stationary modeling of changes in the frequency and severity of extremes, are explored to analyze changes in return levels of droughts for the Colorado River. The transient future return levels (conditional quantiles) derived from regional drought projections using appropriate extreme value models, are compared with those from observed naturalized streamflows. The time of detection is computed as the time at which significant differences exist between the observed and future extreme drought levels, accounting for the uncertainties in their estimates. Projections from multiple climate model-scenario combinations are considered; no uniform pattern of changes in drought quantiles is observed across all the projections. While some projections indicate shifting to another stationary regime, for many projections which are found to be non-stationary, detection of change in tail quantiles of droughts occurs within the 21st century with no unanimity in the time of detection. Earlier detection is observed in droughts levels of higher probability of exceedance. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	ADVANCES IN WATER RESOURCES
Publisher:	ELSEVIER SCI LTD
Additional Information:	Copyright for this article belongs to the ELSEVIER SCI LTD, THE BOULEVARD, LANGFORD LANE, KIDLINGTON, OXFORD OX5 1GB, OXON, ENGLAND
Keywords:	Droughts; Climate change; Extremes; Non-stationary; Transient return levels; Detection
Department/Centre:	Division of Mechanical Sciences > Divecha Centre for Climate Change Division of Mechanical Sciences > Civil Engineering
Date Deposited:	21 Jan 2015 04:33
Last Modified:	21 Jan 2015 04:33
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/50705

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