Assessing the global influence of ENSO on flood risk through 1600 years
of simulations
Abstract
El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is often considered as a source of
long-term predictability for extreme events via its teleconnection
patterns. However, given that its characteristic cycle varies from two
to seven years, it is difficult to obtain statistically significant
conclusions based on observational periods spanning only a few decades.
To overcome this, we apply the global flood risk modeling framework
developed by Carozza and Boudreault to an equivalent of 1600 years of
bias-corrected GCM outputs. The results show substantial anomalies in
flood occurrences and impacts for El Niño and La Niña when compared to
the all-year baseline. We were able to obtain a larger global coverage
of statistically significant results than previous studies limited to
observational data. Asymmetries in anomalies for both ENSO phases show a
larger global influence of El Niño than La Niña on flood hazard and
risk.