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Journal Article

Globally observed trends in mean and extreme river flow attributed to climate change

Authors

Gudmundsson,  Lukas
External Organizations;

Boulange,  Julien
External Organizations;

Do,  Hong X.
External Organizations;

Gosling,  Simon N.
External Organizations;

Grillakis,  Manolis G.
External Organizations;

Koutroulis,  Aristeidis G.
External Organizations;

Leonard,  Michael
External Organizations;

Liu,  Junguo
External Organizations;

Müller Schmied,  Hannes
External Organizations;

Papadimitriou,  Lamprini
External Organizations;

Pokhrel,  Yadu
External Organizations;

Seneviratne,  Sonia I.
External Organizations;

Satoh,  Yusuke
External Organizations;

Thiery,  Wim
External Organizations;

Westra,  Seth
External Organizations;

Zhang,  Xuebin
External Organizations;

/persons/resource/fangzhao

Zhao,  Fang
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

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Citation

Gudmundsson, L., Boulange, J., Do, H. X., Gosling, S. N., Grillakis, M. G., Koutroulis, A. G., Leonard, M., Liu, J., Müller Schmied, H., Papadimitriou, L., Pokhrel, Y., Seneviratne, S. I., Satoh, Y., Thiery, W., Westra, S., Zhang, X., Zhao, F. (2021): Globally observed trends in mean and extreme river flow attributed to climate change. - Science, 371, 6534, 1159-1162.
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aba3996


Cite as: https://publications.pik-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_26656
Abstract
Anthropogenic climate change is expected to affect global river flow. Here, we analyze time series of low, mean, and high river flows from 7250 observatories around the world covering the years 1971 to 2010. We identify spatially complex trend patterns, where some regions are drying and others are wetting consistently across low, mean, and high flows. Trends computed from state-of-the-art model simulations are consistent with the observations only if radiative forcing that accounts for anthropogenic climate change is considered. Simulated effects of water and land management do not suffice to reproduce the observed trend pattern. Thus, the analysis provides clear evidence for the role of externally forced climate change as a causal driver of recent trends in mean and extreme river flow at the global scale.