Global Change and Extreme Hydrology: Testing Conventional Wisdom

摘要

The National Research Council (NRC) Committee on Hydrologic Sciences (COHS) convened a workshop, titled Global Change and Extreme Hydrologic Events: Testing Conventional Wisdom, to promote dialogue across the science and water resource management communities with respect to climate change and its links to extreme hydrologic events, specifically floods and droughts. The workshops purpose was to probe the conventional wisdom that as the climate warms there will be an acceleration of the hydrologic cycle that will translate into potentially more frequent and severe floods and droughts. The issue is fundamental not only to the science of climate change but also to the capacity of the nation and, indeed, the world to adapt to changes in the Earth system in the 21st century. The workshop reviewed evidence supporting the conventional wisdom, assessed the degree to which the phenomenon--or at least its perception--is consistent across the atmospheric and hydrologic science realms, and assessed the effectiveness by which the scientific knowledge base is currently being translated into water policy and management. The workshop and deliberations of the host committee yielded several valuable findings as summarized here.