Daniel Swain in The National Science Foundation: Extreme rainfall projected to become more severe, frequent with warming

A paper published in the American Geophysical Union journal Earth’s Future, states that warming has a more profound effect on both the severity and frequency of extreme precipitation events than it does on common precipitation events. The findings have serious implications for how we prepare for the future, co-author UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain said.

“The five-year flood, the 10-year flood — those aren’t the ones that cause huge amounts of damage and societal disruption,” said Swain. “That comes when you get 50- or 100-year floods, the low-probability but high-consequence kinds of events.”