Signatures of drought and flooding events in terrestrial water storage anomalies

Hydrological extremes such as flooding and droughts are expected to increase in both intensity and frequency, under climate change. A proper identification and quantification of extremes, both from modelling and observing efforts is crucial for informed decision making and preparedness of society. Earth observation techniques such as terrestrial water storage anomalies from satellite gravimetry have been providing crucial information but are often provided at monthly resolution, and may therefore hinder the detection and quantification of short-lived events. Fortunately, upcoming satellite gravimetry missions, such as the MAGIC mission promise higher time resolutions.

In this poster, we explore how watershed-wide water fluxes from ERA5 and river discharge (from GLOFAS, GEOGLOWS) during extreme events accumulate as terrestrial water storage anomalies at different time scales. We then compare the accumulated terrestrial water storages and review how the signals are attenuated in monthly satellite derived TWS. Furthermore, we’ll show a comparison directly in terms of fluxes as derived from numerically differentiating TWS anomalies and evaluate the effect of the differentiating schemes.