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Scientific article
English

Rain-on-snow events, floods and climate change in the Alps: Events may increase with warming up to 4°C and decrease thereafter

Published inScience of the total environment, vol. 571, p. 228-236
Publication date2016
Abstract

This paper focuses on the influence of mountain rain-on-snow (ROS) events that can on occasion trigger major floods in alpine catchments. In order to assess the evolution of these events in a recent past, and the potential changes that could be experienced in a changing climate over coming decades,we have focused on a small catchment in north-eastern Switzerland, the Sitter, well-endowed with both climate and hydrological data. Observations showthat there has been an increase in the number of rain-on-snow events since the early 1960s related to the rise in atmospheric temperatures. Results froma simple temperature-based snowmodel showthat the number of ROS events could increase by close to 50% with temperatures 2–4 °C warmer than today, before declining when temperatures go beyond 4 °C. The likelihood of more ROS events suggests that the risks of flooding in a future climate may indeed get worse before they improve.

Keywords
  • Climate change
  • Snow
  • Floods
Citation (ISO format)
BENISTON, Martin, STOFFEL, Markus. Rain-on-snow events, floods and climate change in the Alps: Events may increase with warming up to 4°C and decrease thereafter. In: Science of the total environment, 2016, vol. 571, p. 228–236. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.07.146
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Identifiers
ISSN of the journal0048-9697
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