Evaluation of empirical relationships between extreme rainfall and daily maximum temperature in Australia

Herath, Sujeewa Malwila; Sarukkalige, Ranjan; Nguyen, Van Kien

doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2017.01.060

Cited by 53 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Only about half the sites have scaling rates that are significantly different from zero. There is a slight concentration of positive scaling along the eastern regions of Australia and some negative sensitivities on the western seaboard, similar to previous studies using surface temperatures and daily rainfall (Wasko et al 2016, Herath et al 2018. In the tropics there is a mix of positive and negative scaling, which may suggest improved results for locations with higher atmospheric moisture when atmospheric temperature is used, as previously using surface temperatures resulted in exclusively negative scaling (Hardwick Jones et al 2010, Wasko et al 2018).…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 83%

The relationship of atmospheric air temperature and dew point temperature to extreme rainfall

Bui

Johnson

Wasko

2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

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To understand the expected changes of extreme rainfalls due to climate change, the sensitivity of rainfall to surface temperature is often calculated. However, as surface temperatures may not be a good indicator of atmospheric moisture, an alternative is to use atmospheric temperatures, but the use of atmospheric temperatures lacks precedent. Using radiosonde atmospheric temperature data at a range of geopotential heights from 34 weather stations across Australia and its territories, we examine whether atmospheric temperature can improve our understanding of rainfall-temperature sensitivities. There is considerable variability in the calculated sensitivity when using atmospheric air temperature, while atmospheric dew point temperature showed robust positive sensitivities, similar to when surface dew point temperature measurements were used. We conclude atmospheric dew point temperature may be a promising candidate for future investigations of empirically calculated sensitivities of rainfall to temperature but does not appear superior to the use of surface dew point temperature measurements.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 83%

The relationship of atmospheric air temperature and dew point temperature to extreme rainfall

Bui

Johnson

Wasko

2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

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“…Despite international actions to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, it is predicted that the global climate will undergo significant changes (Ibne Amir et al 2012;Njijsse et al 2019). Existing literature suggests that the increase in temperature will cause highly intensive rainfall in many parts of the world (Westra, Alexander, and Francis 2013;Herath, Sarukkalige, and Nguyen 2018). Pfleiderer et al (2019) reported that summer temperatures across the globe are more persistently 2°C above pre-industrial levels, based on daily observed temperature data from 1950 to 2014.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantification of relationship between annual daily maximum temperature and annual daily maximum rainfall in South Australia

Ahammed

2020

Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters

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The empirical relationship between annual daily maximum temperature (ADMT) and annual daily maximum rainfall (ADMR) was investigated. The data were collected from four weather stations located in Adelaide, South Australia, from 1988 to 2017. Due to the influence of sea surface temperature on rainfall and temperature, the distance from the weather station to the sea was considered in the selection of weather stations. Two weather stations near the sea and two inland weather stations were selected. Three non-parametric statistical tests (Kruskal-Wallis, Mann-Whitney, and correlation) were applied to perform statistical analysis on the ADMT and ADMR data. It was revealed that the temperature and rainfall in South Australia varies according to weather station location. The distance from the sea to the weather station was found to have limited influence on temperature and rainfall. Meanwhile, with the 0.05 level of significance, the association between ADMT and ADMR near sea stations is not as significant as the association between the two inland weather stations. It is relatively unrealistic to use ADMR to predict ADMT, or vice versa, since their correlation is not statistically significant (Spearman's rank correlation coefficient: −0.106).

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“…In a recent paper, Bao et al (2017) study future changes to precipitation extremes in Australia under a warming climate using a regional climate model with parameterized convection. They report on projections of a uniform increase in precipitation extremes across Australia, including the northern half of the country where there is a negative historical scaling relationship between temperature and extreme precipitation (Hardwick Jones et al, 2010;Herath et al, 2017), in agreement with what is generally observed in tropical regions (Utsumi et al, 2011;Maeda et al, 2012;Wasko et al, 2016). While the moisture-holding capacity of the atmosphere is expected to increase with surface temperature through the Clausius-Clapeyron (CC) equation (Pall et al, 2007), the negative scaling observed in tropical regions is generally attributed to limitations in atmospheric moisture at higher temperatures (Hardwick Jones et al, 2010;Westra et al, 2014), particularly at extreme precipitation percentiles and for longer storm durations (Wasko et al, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Temperature‐extreme precipitation scaling: a two‐way causality?

Barbero

Westra

Lenderink

et al. 2017

Intl Journal of Climatology

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Extreme precipitation events are widely thought to intensify in a warmer atmosphere through the Clausius‐Clapeyron equation. The temperature‐extreme precipitation scaling was proposed to analyse the temperature dependency of short‐duration extreme precipitation and since then, the concept has been widely used in climatology. Bao et al. (2017) suggest that the apparent scaling reflects not only how surface air properties affect extreme precipitation, but also reflects how synoptic conditions and localized cooling due to the storm itself affect the scaling – implying two‐way causality. We address here critical issues of this paper and provide evidence that dew point temperature drives extreme precipitation, with the direction of causality reversed only for the storm's peak intensity. This physical inference may serve as a basis to better quantify scaling rates and to help establish the relationship between extreme precipitation and environmental conditions in the current climate, and thereby provide insights into future changes to precipitation extremes due to climate change.

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Evaluation of empirical relationships between extreme rainfall and daily maximum temperature in Australia

Cited by 53 publications

References 35 publications

The relationship of atmospheric air temperature and dew point temperature to extreme rainfall

The relationship of atmospheric air temperature and dew point temperature to extreme rainfall

Quantification of relationship between annual daily maximum temperature and annual daily maximum rainfall in South Australia

Temperature‐extreme precipitation scaling: a two‐way causality?

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