Shaun Harrigan - EGU Young Scientist Representative for the Hydrological Sciences
This week at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2015 (EGU) in Vienna Shaun Harrigan has been given the role of the Young Scientist representative for the EGU hydrological sciences division. This is major honour and one that reflects Shaun's dedication and contribution to the field at this early stage of his career. We are proud of Shaun here at Maynooth and know that he represents not just Maynooth but also the broader Irish research community to a very high standard.
While at the conference Shaun is also convening a number of sessions and presenting his research. Two of his papers are summarised below
Why more hydrologists need to look up
Shaun Harrigan Irish Climate Analysis and Research Units (ICARUS), Department of Geography, Maynooth University, Maynooth, Ireland (shaun.harrigan@mu.ie)
Floods are no longer seen as random local events. Perspectives are now emerging that aim to link hydrological extremes to large-scale climate drivers at global and regional scales. For example, Atmospheric Rivers, narrow regions of water vapor transport in troposphere, have been associated with the most damaging floods in parts of the US and Europe. What is becoming increasingly apparent is that we need to better understand the driving mechanisms of the hydrological cycle over multi-decadal time-scales, bridging the fields of hydrology and climatology. This scientific knowledge can then be exploited to improve management of future extremes.
Development of a flood index for Ireland
Shaun Harrigan (1), Conor Murphy (1), and Robert L. Wilby (2)
(1) Irish Climate Analysis and Research Units (ICARUS), Department of Geography, Maynooth University, Maynooth, Ireland (shaun.harrigan@mu.ie), (2) Centre for Hydrological and Ecosystem Science (CHES), Department of Geography, Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK
Anthropogenic greenhouse gas induced climate change is expected to intensify the global hydrological cycle, leading to increased magnitude and frequency of floods; hence increasing the physical hazard component of flood risk. However, at regional scales the influence of natural large-scale climate variability often dominates and has been linked to periods of enhanced/reduced flooding. This is problematic for assessing trends in flood time-series as observed data at daily/sub-daily resolution are often too short and hence detected changes reflect a snap-shot of climate variability rather than evidence of long-term climate change. This study presents initial results extending a flood index developed in the UK to the Irish domain. First, areas that reflect similar extreme precipitation generating mechanisms are identified in order to group streamflow stations into a number of distinct regions. An objective weather classification scheme is then used to reconstruct the atmospheric drivers of fluvial flood occurrence over multi-decadal time-scales; allowing for the analysis of which weather types are relatively flood-rich/flood-poor. This index can then be used to place short term fluctuations in flooding in context of longer term variations.