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Does global warming favour the occurrence of extreme floods in European Alps? First evidences from a NW Alps proglacial lake sediment record

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Abstract

Flood hazard is expected to increase in the context of global warming. However, long time-series of climate and gauge data at high-elevation are too sparse to assess reliably the rate of recurrence of such events in mountain areas. Here paleolimnological techniques were used to assess the evolution of frequency and magnitude of flash flood events in the North-western European Alps since the Little Ice Age (LIA). The aim was to document a possible effect of the post-19th century global warming on torrential floods frequency and magnitude. Altogether 56 flood deposits were detected from grain size and geochemical measurements performed on gravity cores taken in the proglacial Lake Blanc (2170 m a.s.l., Belledonne Massif, NW French Alps). The age model relies on radiometric dating (137Cs and 241Am), historic lead contamination and the correlation of major flood- and earthquake-triggered deposits, with recognized occurrences in historical written archives. The resulting flood calendar spans the last ca 270 years (AD 1740–AD 2007). The magnitude of flood events was inferred from the accumulated sediment mass per flood event and compared with reconstructed or homogenized datasets of precipitation, temperature and glacier variations. Whereas the decennial flood frequency seems to be independent of seasonal precipitation, a relationship with summer temperature fluctuations can be observed at decadal timescales. Most of the extreme flood events took place since the beginning of the 20th century with the strongest occurring in 2005. Our record thus suggests climate warming is favouring the occurrence of high magnitude torrential flood events in high-altitude catchments.

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Acknowledgments

B. Wilhelm’s work is supported by a grant from the Assemblée des Pays de Savoie and the Communauté de Communes des Balcons de Belledonne. Logistical and financial supports were brought in the framework of the scientific programmes Vorz, founded by the Communauté de Communes des Balcons de Belledonne and Pygmalion, founded by the French National Research Agency (ANR BLAN07-2_204489). Authors are particularly grateful to the Sainte Agnes’ mayor who launched the Vorz programme and brought valuable help for field campaigns. Authors are grateful to Prof. Bernd Zolitschka who kindly permitted the access to the Geopolar XRF core scanner device and to the database Histalp which permits to obtain free climatological long series (http://www.zamg.ac.at/histalp). Thin sections were performed thanks to the technical facilities of the “plateforme d’analyses structurales et environnementales” (ASTRE) of the University of Savoie. Finally authors are grateful to the four anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

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  1. Laboratoire Environnement Dynamique et Territoire de Montagne, Le Bourget-du-Lac, France

    B. Wilhelm, F. Arnaud, F. Allignol, A. Legaz, C. Giguet-Covex & E. Malet

  2. Laboratoire Environnement Dynamique et Territoire de Montagne, Le Bourget-du-Lac, France

    D. Enters

  3. GEOPOLAR, Institute of Geography, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    D. Enters

  4. Laboratoire de Glaciologie et de Géophysique de l’Environnement, Saint-Martin d’Hères, France

    O. Magand

  5. Laboratoire Environnement Dynamique et Territoire de Montagne, Le Bourget-du-Lac, France

    S. Revillon

  6. IFREMER, Pouzané, France

    S. Revillon

  7. EDYTEM, Le Bourget-du-Lac, Campus Scientifique, Pôle Montagne, 73 376, Le Bourget-du-Lac, France

    B. Wilhelm

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  1. B. Wilhelm
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Wilhelm, B., Arnaud, F., Enters, D. et al. Does global warming favour the occurrence of extreme floods in European Alps? First evidences from a NW Alps proglacial lake sediment record. Climatic Change 113, 563–581 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0376-2

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