An Atmospheric Water Balance Perspective on Extreme Rainfall Potential for the Contiguous US

Su, Yibing; Smith, James A.

doi:10.1029/2020wr028387

Cited by 19 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 86 publications

(123 reference statements)

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“…ξ i < 0 , in contrast, implies an upper bound to the distribution, while ξ i = 0 indicates a thin tail. Estimated shape parameters have been widely used in the study of extreme events such as rainfall, floods, and water vapor transport (e.g., Villarini & Smith, 2010; Su & Smith, 2021). In this study, record length thresholds described in Section 3.1 provided μ i ; this approach has been used in prior research (e.g., Papalexiou & Montanari, 2019) and practice (e.g., Bonnin et al., 2004; Perica et al., 2018).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diverse Physical Processes Drive Upper‐Tail Flood Quantiles in the US Mountain West

Wright

Davenport

2022

Geophysical Research Letters

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Riverine flooding can be triggered by a variety of distinct hydrometeorological drivers. In the eastern U.S., most floods are due to extreme tropical cyclone rainfall or springtime extratropical systems (Smith et al., 2011;Villarini & Smith, 2010). Looking further west, extratropical systems combined with summertime mesoscale convective systems make up the flood climatology in the midwestern U.S. (Villarini et al., 2011), while floods in the mountainous western United States can be caused by extreme rainfall (often from atmospheric rivers [ARs]; e.g., Barth et al., 2017), snowmelt, or their combination (Berghuijs et al., 2016;Davenport et al., 2020). Such "mixtures" of flood types associated with different physical drivers are also well-documented in Europe (Berghuijs et al., 2019;Blöschl et al., 2017Blöschl et al., , 2019 and likely exist in most terrestrial regions around the globe. Watersheds with these mixtures generally do not experience each type with equal frequency or severity (Smith et al., 2018).Flood mixtures have two important implications. The first is related to estimation of extreme streamflow quantiles such as the 100-year average recurrence interval (ARI; corresponding to a 1% annual exceedance probability [AEP]). These and other quantiles from extreme streamflow distributions-derived via methods broadly referred to as flood frequency analysis (FFA)-are central to infrastructure design, dam safety analysis, and floodplain mapping (e.g., NRC, 1988NRC, , 1994 USBR, 2006 USBR, , 2011. For mathematical convenience, FFA practices typically treat a sample of streamflow observations at a given site as independent and identically distributed (iid; e.g., Sivapalan & Samuel, 2009) regardless of whether the sample stems from one or multiple causes. The difficulty of mixed sample FFA was recognized decades ago in FFA guidelines ("Bulletin 17B"; ICWD, 1982), and a variety of "mixture distribution FFA" techniques have since appeared (e.g.,

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diverse Physical Processes Drive Upper‐Tail Flood Quantiles in the US Mountain West

Wright

Davenport

2022

Geophysical Research Letters

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“…The atmospheric mass balance (Equation 1) is the result of complex dynamic and thermodynamic interactions of atmospheric components (Seager et al., 2010; Su & Smith, 2021). Based on the various data sets considered, this study investigated how W and P , two elements of the atmospheric mass balance, are connected and how they change with rising temperatures.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Atmospheric mass balance (Su & Smith, 2021) can be expressed as the temporal change of total precipitable water…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Atmospheric mass balance (Su & Smith, 2021) can be expressed as the temporal change of total precipitable water

\frac{\partial W}{\partial t}=E-P-\nabla \cdot Q

where W : total precipitable water; t : time; E : evaporation; P : precipitation; Q : water vapor convergence computed as the convergence of zonal and meridional water vapor transport vector, i.e., Q = ( Q x, Q y); and ∇⋅ Q is the combined magnitude of Q .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Linking Total Precipitable Water to Precipitation Extremes Globally

et al. 2022

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The relationship between extreme precipitation (EP) and precipitable water (W) is useful to assess design extremes and speculate on their expected changes with rising global temperatures. This study investigates the relationship between daily and longer‐duration EP and corresponding W at a global scale by analyzing remote‐sensed and reanalysis data sets from 2003 to 2019. An assessment of the consistency in the temporal trend across various W data sets reveals a consistent statistically significant upward trend during the period. This upward trend, while predominant worldwide, is especially significant over tropical land regions. W is found to generally be positively correlated with surface (dew point) temperature, suggesting a rise in temperature will cause a greater W over time. To assess whether EPs occur coincident with extreme W, the Concurrent Extremes Index (CEI) is proposed, which compares the cumulative distribution functions between the two variables and assumes a value of unity if ranks of the EP series are identical to that of the coincident W series, and zero with no correspondence. For EP (defined as the five largest 1‐day events per year on average), a high CEI is pronounced across the tropics, except for rainforests. The W‐EP relationship is noticeably weakened in nontropics, except the inland regions of North America and East Asia. An assessment indicates that as the duration of the EP becomes longer, the influence of W on EP decreases. However, the contrast in the W‐EP relationship between the tropics and nontropics is found to become more pronounced as longer‐duration EPs are considered.

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“…Most daily scale studies of persistent heavy rainfall events emphasize the persistence of the occurrence time in the study area while disregarding heavy rainfall events. This type of study focuses on the spatiotemporal evolution (He and Zhai, 2018) and causes of the heavy rainfall events (Fang and Yi, 2013; Yuan et al ., 2019; Su and Smith, 2021), such as the main circulation patterns and water vapour transport (Wang et al ., 2017). In addition, the relationship between heavy rainfall events at daily scales and secondary hazards (Jin et al ., 2017; Park et al ., 2020; Bai et al ., 2021) has also attracted much attention.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatiotemporal patterns and evolution of heavy rainfall trajectories in China

Chen

Zhu

2022

Intl Journal of Climatology

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A heavy rainfall trajectory (HRT) is defined as the trajectory formed by the movement of the rainstorm centre of a heavy rainfall event over time. Based on this definition, the dispersion degree (DD) of HRTs is applied based on the Euclidean distance and an empirical orthogonal function (EOF) to quantify the spatiotemporal distribution and evolution characteristics of HRTs in China. The results show that (a) the spatial distribution and length of HRTs in China have distinct geographical and seasonal characteristics, which are strongly influenced by the East Asian summer monsoon. (b) From southeast China to northwest China, the DDs increased to 8 and the length of HRTs decreased by 53,925 m. (c) According to EOF analysis, the direction angle change of northeast-oriented HRTs shows a significant negative trend across the country, while those of southeast-, southwest-and northwest-oriented HRTs show a significant positive trend. From 2008 to 2019, HRTs flattened in the northeast and southwest directions, while HRTs steepened in the southeast and northwest directions. This research provides certain scientific guidance for the prevention and mitigation of regional disasters and provides necessary theoretical support for the changing patterns of the climate system under the impact of climate change.

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An Atmospheric Water Balance Perspective on Extreme Rainfall Potential for the Contiguous US

Cited by 19 publications

References 86 publications

Diverse Physical Processes Drive Upper‐Tail Flood Quantiles in the US Mountain West

Diverse Physical Processes Drive Upper‐Tail Flood Quantiles in the US Mountain West

Linking Total Precipitable Water to Precipitation Extremes Globally

Spatiotemporal patterns and evolution of heavy rainfall trajectories in China

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