A warming climate is expected to have an impact on the magnitude and timing of river floods; however, no consistent large-scale climate change signal in observed flood magnitudes has been identified so far. We analyzed the timing of river floods in Europe over the past five decades, using a pan-European database from 4262 observational hydrometric stations, and found clear patterns of change in flood timing. Warmer temperatures have led to earlier spring snowmelt floods throughout northeastern Europe; delayed winter storms associated with polar warming have led to later winter floods around the North Sea and some sectors of the Mediterranean coast; and earlier soil moisture maxima have led to earlier winter floods in western Europe. Our results highlight the existence of a clear climate signal in flood observations at the continental scale.

Centre for Ecology and Hydrology Wallingford Oxfordshire UK

Control Systems Engineering Renewable Energy Systems and Technology Tirana Albania

Czech Hydrometeorological Institute Prague Czechia

Department for Catchment Hydrology Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research UFZ Halle Germany

Department of Agricultural Sciences University of Naples Federico 2 Naples Italy

Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering University of Bath Bath UK

Department of Civil Chemical Environmental and Materials Engineering Università di Bologna Bologna Italy

Department of Civil Engineering Dokuz Eylul University Izmir Turkey

Department of Civil Engineering Hydraulic Energy and Environment Technical University of Madrid Madrid Spain

Department of Engineering University of Messina Messina Italy

Department of Engineering University Roma Tre Rome Italy

Department of Environment Land and Infrastructure Engineering Politecnico di Torino Turin Italy

Department of Geography and Planning and Institute of Risk and Uncertainty University of Liverpool Liverpool UK

Department of Geography Faculty of Science University of Zagreb Zagreb Croatia

Department of Hydrological Research Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Institute Kiev Ukraine

Department of Hydrology and Hydrodynamics Institute of Geophysics Polish Academy of Sciences Warsaw Poland

Department of Land and Water Resources Management Faculty of Civil Engineering Slovak University of Technology 810 05 Bratislava Slovakia

Department of Land Environment Agriculture and Forestry University of Padova Padua Italy

Department of Land Hydrology Lomonosov Moscow State University Moscow Russia

Faculty of Civil and Geodetic Engineering University of Ljubljana Ljubljana Slovenia

Faculty of Civil Engineering Architecture and Geodesy Split University Split Croatia

Faculty of Geography University of Belgrade Belgrade Serbia

Finnish Environment Institute Helsinki Finland

Helmholtz Centre Potsdam GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences Potsdam Germany

Hydrometeorological Institute Odessa State Environmental University Odessa Ukraine

Institute of Environmental Engineering ETH Zürich Zürich Switzerland

Institute of Geo Sciences Energy Water and Environment Polytechnic University of Tirana Tirana Albania

Institute of Geography Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics Ss Cyril and Methodius University Skopje Republic of Macedonia

Institute of Hydraulic Engineering and Water Resources Management Technische Universität Wien Vienna Austria

Irish Climate Analysis and Research Units Department of Geography Maynooth University Ireland

Irstea UR HHLY Hydrology Hydraulics Research Unit Lyon France

Lower Tisza District Water Directorate Szeged Hungary

Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate Oslo Norway

Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute Norrköping Sweden

University of Architecture Civil Engineering and Geodesy Sofia Bulgaria

Science. 2017 Aug 11;357(6351):552. doi: 10.1126/science.aao2441. PubMed

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