PI: Peter J. Webster
School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
Georgia Institute of Technology
311 Ferst Avenue
Atlanta, GA 30332-0340, USA
| Phone: | 404 894 1748 |
| Fax: | 404 894 5638 |
| Email: | pjw@eas.gatech.edu |
Web page: http://www.eas.gatech.edu/people/faculty/webster.html
My research group and I have been doing a lot of monsoon work over the years: both South and East Asian as well as East African, the latter more recently. In particular, we have been interested in flooding and have carried out a number of studies where we drive hydrological models with GCM precipitation or precipitation forecasts. Our main concern has been forecasting floods in Bangladesh and we have developed methods for forecasting on a variety of time scales. We have been rather successful but would like to ask similar questions about degrees of flooding in a warming world. We are aware of the paper Palmer TN, Ralsanen J, Quantifying the risk of extreme seasonal precipitation events in a changing climate (Nature 415: 512-514, Jan 31 2002) and, in fact, I have discussed the results with Tim Palmer extensively. They find the return period of extreme rainfall shortened considerably. We would like to apply our hydrological models to the CMIP doubled atmospheric carbon dioxide output to assess the impact of flooding in Bangladesh and, at the same time, extend the analysis to the other monsoon regions listed above. I am happy to work with Palmer and Ralsanen on this project if they would like.