Brunner et al. (2025) Spatially Compounding Drought‐Flood Events Are Favored by Atmospheric Blocking Over Europe

⚠️ Warning: This summary was generated from the abstract only, as the full text was not available.

Identification

• Journal: Water Resources Research
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-10-01
• Authors: Manuela I. Brunner, Magdalena Mittermeier, Bailey Anderson, Dominik Büeler, Eduardo Muñoz‐Castro
• DOI: 10.1029/2024wr039622

Research Groups

Not explicitly stated in the provided abstract.

Short Summary

This study investigates the occurrence, seasonality, and large-scale atmospheric drivers of spatially compounding drought-flood events across Europe using streamflow and precipitation observations. It reveals that these events exhibit strong seasonality, occurring most frequently in winter, spring, and June, and are primarily favored by specific blocking and Zonal weather regimes.

Objective

• To understand the occurrence, seasonality, and large-scale atmospheric drivers of spatially compounding drought-flood events in Europe.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Continental (Europe)
• Temporal Scale: Seasonal (winter, spring, summer, June) over an unspecified multi-year period to establish seasonality.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Not explicitly mentioned as process models; the study primarily involves analysis of observed data and weather regimes.
• Data sources: Streamflow observations, precipitation observations (both for Europe), and seven European weather regimes.

Main Results

• Spatially compounding drought-flood events in Europe exhibit strong seasonality, occurring most often during winter, spring, and June.
• Their meteorological counterparts (spatially compounding dry-wet extremes) mainly occur in summer.
• These events have distinct spatial footprints, categorized into four main clusters:
  • Flood part over Central Europe or the UK in summer or winter.
  • Flood part over Eastern Europe in spring.
  • Flood part over Southern Europe in winter.
• Spatially compounding drought-flood events are mainly favored by different types of blocking regimes in winter, spring, and summer, and by the Zonal Regime in winter and spring.
• These favoring weather regimes are characterized by stable high-pressure systems over one part of Europe and cyclonic conditions at their edges over another part.

Contributions

• Addresses a significant research gap concerning the occurrence, seasonality, and large-scale atmospheric drivers of spatially compounding drought-flood events.
• Provides the first systematic analysis of these complex, simultaneous extreme events using observed streamflow and precipitation data across Europe.
• Identifies specific seasonal patterns and spatial footprints of these events, categorizing them into four distinct clusters.
• Establishes a clear link between these compounding events and specific European weather regimes (blocking and Zonal regimes), elucidating their atmospheric drivers.

Funding

Not explicitly stated in the provided abstract.

Citation

@article{Brunner2025Spatially,
  author = {Brunner, Manuela I. and Mittermeier, Magdalena and Anderson, Bailey and Büeler, Dominik and Muñoz‐Castro, Eduardo},
  title = {Spatially Compounding Drought‐Flood Events Are Favored by Atmospheric Blocking Over Europe},
  journal = {Water Resources Research},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.1029/2024wr039622},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1029/2024wr039622}
}