Hurricane Harvey Flood

Abstract

Online supplement to Attributable human-induced changes in the magnitude of flooding in the Houston, Texas region during Hurricane Harvey, by Michael Wehner and Christopher Sampson. Geospatial data to visualize the attributable flooding in the greater Houston during Hurricane Harvey as simulated by the Fathom hydraulical model in a geotiff file format is provided at https://portal.nersc.gov/cascade/Harvey/ . The public is encouraged to download this open access data and investigate their own neighborhoods of interest using free or commercial software. A detailed validation of the baseline simulated "flood that was" for every neighborhood is outside the scope of this article but individuals can compare the simulation to their own experiences. The public is then invited to compare the "flood that might have been" had there not been a human interference in the climate system to the simulated actual flood in these neighborhoods. The variety of scientific opinions as to the human effect on precipitation and their effect on the flood are presented as detailed in the table below. A pair of high risk scenarios of the effect of a future warmer climate and a hypothetical storm similar to Harvey is also provided.