Attributable human-induced changes in the magnitude of flooding in the Houston, Texas region during Hurricane Harvey

At an estimated cost of 90-160 billion USD, Hurricane Harvey is the 2^nd most expensive US tropical cyclone after adjustment for inflation. Damages were principally due to freshwater inland flooding resulting from the copious amounts of precipitation endured during the storm's extended stall over the greater Houston, Texas region from 26-31 August 2017. Published attributable increases in that precipitation due to anthropogenic climate change range from 7% to 38%. We investigate the impact of this additional precipitation on the flood water volume and area through the Fathom hydraulical model at a 30m horizontal resolution. We find that for the higher estimates of the human influence on Harvey, vast areas of greater Houston would not have been flooded in the absence of global warming.