Professor Hayley Fowler (University of Newcastle)
- Date: Tuesday 8 March 2022, 14:00 – 15:00
- Location: Online
- Type: Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science, Seminars, Earth and Environment
- Cost: N/A
Anthropogenic intensification of short-duration rainfall extremes and increasing flood risks
Speaker: Professor Hayley Fowler
Title: Anthropogenic intensification of short-duration rainfall extremes and increasing flood risks
Abstract: Short-duration rainfall extremes can cause serious damage to infrastructure and loss of life through rapidly developing flash floods. These are intensifying with warming at a rate consistent with, or higher than, atmospheric moisture increase, increasing the incidence of flash flooding at local scales, particularly in urban areas. These findings call for urgent measures to manage increasing flood risks, including rethinking the ways climate change is incorporated into flood estimation guidance
Bio: Prof Hayley Fowler is Professor of Climate Change Impacts in the School of Engineering at Newcastle University. Her research focuses on improved physical understanding of changing precipitation extremes and providing better projections for climate adaptation. She has pioneered new downscaling techniques to bridge the gap between climate modellers and users of climate scenarios (e.g. UKCP09 Weather Generator). She is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (2018) and a Royal Society Wolfson Research Fellow (2014-19) for her work on understanding climate change impacts on hydrological systems, extreme rainfall and flooding, following a Philip Leverhulme Prize (2011) and NERC Postdoctoral Fellowship (2006-10). She led the GEWEX Hydroclimatology Panel sub-daily precipitation cross-cut and is Chief Editor of Frontiers in Interdisciplinary Climate Studies. She was a Contributing Author to Chapter 8: Water Cycle and Chapter 11: Extremes for the IPCC 6th Assessment Report WGI and Chapter 1 for the UK 3rd Climate Change Risk Assessment. She is British Hydrological Society President Elect. She is on the Environment Agency Expert panel for Boosting Action in Surface Water: Plausible Extremes and a member of the Governance board for the Flood Hydrology Roadmap. She advises government through her roles on the Strategic Advisory Board for RESAS Science and on the BEIS Science Expert Group. She is also a member of the Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme Science Review Group. Locally, she co-chairs the Newcastle Net Zero Task Force.