RESUMEN
Early warning systems (EWS) for river flooding are strategic tools for effective disaster risk management in many world regions. When driven by ensemble Numerical Weather Predictions (NWP), flood EWS can provide skillful streamflow forecasts beyond the monthly time scale in large river basins. Yet, effective flood detection is challenged by accurate estimation of warning thresholds that identify specific hazard levels along the entire river network and forecast horizon. This research describes a novel approach to estimate warning thresholds which retain statistical consistency with the operational forecasts at all lead times. The procedure is developed in the context of the Global Flood Awareness System (GloFAS). A 21-year forecast-consistent dataset is used to derive thresholds with global coverage and forecast range up to six weeks. These are compared with thresholds derived from ERA5, a state of the art atmospheric reanalysis used to run the baseline simulation for the years 1986-2017 and to give a best guess of the present hydrological states. Findings show that the use of constant thresholds for 30-day flood forecasting, as in the current operational GloFAS setup, is consistent throughout the entire forecast range in only 30% to 40% of the river network, depending on the flood return period. Findings show that range-dependent thresholds, of weekly duration, are a more suitable alternative to time-invariant thresholds, as they improve the model consistency as well as the skills in flood monitoring and early warning, particularly over longer forecasting range.
RESUMEN
A large body of work has shown that year-to-year variations in North African dust emission are inversely proportional to previous-year monsoon rainfall in the Sahel, implying that African dust emission is highly sensitive to vegetation changes in this narrow transitional zone. However, such a theory is not supported by field observations or modeling studies, as both suggest that interannual variability in dust is due to changes in wind speeds over the major emitting regions, which lie to the north of the Sahelian vegetated zone. We reconcile this contradiction showing that interannual variability in Sahelian rainfall and surface wind speeds over the Sahara are the result of changes in lower tropospheric air temperatures over the Saharan heat low (SHL). As the SHL warms, an anomalous tropospheric circulation develops that reduces wind speeds over the Sahara and displaces the monsoonal rainfall northward, thus simultaneously increasing Sahelian rainfall and reducing dust emission from the major dust "hotspots" in the Sahara. Our results shed light on why climate models are, to date, unable to reproduce observed historical variability in dust emission and transport from this region.