What’s an atmospheric river? A hydrologist explains the great and dangerous of those flood-prone storms and the way they’re altering

A series of atmospheric rivers is bringing the specter of heavy downpours, flooding, mudslides and avalanches to the Pacific Northwest and California in early 2024. Whereas these storms are dreaded for the injury they will trigger, they’re additionally important to the area’s water provide, significantly in California, as Qian Cao, a hydrologist on the College of California, San Diego, explains.

What are atmospheric rivers?

An atmospheric river is a slim hall or filament of concentrated water vapor transported within the ambiance. It’s like a river within the sky that may be 1,000 miles long. On common, atmospheric rivers have about twice the regular flow of the Amazon River.

When atmospheric rivers run up towards mountains or run into native atmospheric dynamics and are compelled to ascend, the moisture they carry cools and condenses, to allow them to produce intense rainfall or snowfall.

Atmospheric rivers happen all around the world, mostly within the mid-latitudes. They type when large-scale climate patterns align to create slim channels, or filaments, of intense moisture transport. These begin over heat water, usually tropical oceans, and are guided towards the coast by low-level jet streams forward of chilly fronts of extratropical cyclones.

Alongside the U.S. West Coast, the Pacific Ocean serves because the reservoir of moisture for the storm, and the mountain ranges act as boundaries, which is why the western sides of the coastal ranges and Sierra Nevada see a lot rain and snow.

Why are back-to-back atmospheric rivers a excessive flood danger?

Consecutive atmospheric rivers, often called AR households, can cause significant flooding.

The primary heavy downpours saturate the bottom. As consecutive storms arrive, their precipitation falls on soil that may’t take up extra water. That contributes to extra runoff. Rivers and streams refill. Within the meantime, there could also be snowmelt as a consequence of heat temperatures, additional including to the runoff and flood danger.

California skilled a historic run of 9 consecutive atmospheric rivers within the span of three weeks in December 2022 and January 2023. The storms helped bring most reservoirs back to historic averages in 2023 after a number of drought years, however additionally they produced damaging floods and debris flows.

The reason for AR households is an energetic space of analysis. In contrast with single atmospheric river occasions, AR households are usually related to decrease atmospheric stress heights throughout the North Pacific, greater stress heights over the subtropics, a stronger and extra zonally elongated jet stream and hotter tropical air temperatures.

Massive-scale climate patterns and local weather phenomena such because the Madden-Julian Oscillation, or MJO, also play an important role within the era of AR households. An energetic MJO shift occurred through the early 2023 occasions, tilting the chances towards elevated atmospheric river exercise over California.

A current research by scientists at Stanford and the College of Florida discovered that storms inside AR households cause three to four times more economic damage when the storms arrive again to again than the storms would have brought on by themselves.

How essential are atmospheric rivers to the West Coast’s water provide?

I’m a analysis hydrologist, so I deal with hydrological impacts of atmospheric rivers. Though they will result in flood hazards, atmospheric rivers are additionally important to the Western water provide. Atmospheric rivers have been liable for ending more than a third of the area’s main droughts, together with the extreme California drought of 2012-16.

Atmospheric rivers present a median of 30% to 50% of the West Coast’s annual precipitation.

In addition they contribute to the snowpack, which gives a good portion of California’s year-round water provide.

In a median yr, one to 2 excessive atmospheric rivers with snow would be the dominant contributors to the snowpack within the Sierra Nevada. Collectively, atmospheric rivers will contribute about 30% to 40% of a median season’s complete snow accumulation there.

That’s why my colleagues on the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes on the Scripps Establishment of Oceanography, a part of the College of California, San Diego, work on improving atmospheric river forecasts and predictions. Water managers want to have the ability to regulate reservoirs and determine how a lot water they will save for the dry season whereas nonetheless leaving room within the reservoirs to handle flood danger from future storms.

How is world warming affecting atmospheric rivers?

As world temperatures rise sooner or later, we are able to count on extra intense atmospheric rivers, resulting in an increase in heavy and extreme precipitation events.

My analysis additionally exhibits that extra atmospheric rivers are likely to occur concurrently during already wet conditions. So, the possibility of utmost flooding additionally will increase. One other research, by scientists from the College of Washington, means that there can be a seasonal shift to extra atmospheric rivers earlier within the wet season.

There’ll seemingly even be extra year-to-year variability within the complete annual precipitation, significantly in California, as a research by my colleagues on the Heart for Western Climate and Water Extremes initiatives.