Exposure to precipitation from tropical cyclones has increased over the continental United States from 1948 to 2019

Abstract

Extreme precipitation from tropical cyclones can generate large-scale inland flooding and cause substantial damage. Here, we quantify spatiotemporal changes in population risk and exposure to tropical cyclone precipitation in the continental eastern United States over the period 1948–2019 using high-resolution in-situ precipitation observations. We find significant increases in the magnitude and likelihood of these extreme events due to increased rainfall rates and reduced translation speeds of tropical cyclones over land. We then develop a social exposure index to quantify exposure and risk of tropical cyclone precipitation as a function of both physical risk and socio-economic activities. Increased social exposure is primarily due to the increased risk of tropical cyclone precipitation, but there are regional differences. We identify exposure hotspots in the south-eastern United States, where rapid population growth and economic development amplify societal exposure to tropical cyclone hazards. Our multi-scale evaluation framework can help identify locations that should be targeted for mitigation and adaptation activities to increase their climate resilience.

Impact of horizontal resolution and model time step on European precipitation extremes in the OpenIFS 43r3 atmosphere model

“…and subtropics. For example, the predictions of tropical cyclone intensity are markedly improved when the horizontal resolution of the atmosphere model is increased from 120 km to 40 km, but not for 15 to 10 km (Jung et al, 2012), which often triggers extreme precipitation (Gori et al, 2022;Zhu & Quiring, 2022). Moreover, the choice of observation dataset is a key factor for assessing the impact of the horizontal resolution and model time step on extreme precipitation.…”

Spatial and Temporal Variability of Extreme Precipitation Events in the Southeastern United States

“…If multiple consecutive hours crossed the 1-inch threshold, it was treated as a single event to avoid obtaining an excessive number of hourly precipitation observations from a few extreme precipitation events, such as tropical cyclones. Extreme precipitation from tropical cyclones has been increasing significantly in the SeUS by approximately 5-10 percent per decade [23][24][25]. The emphasis of this research is on 1IPH events that are caused by a variety of meteorological or climatological sources.…”

Freddy: breaking record for tropical cyclone precipitation?

“…TC rain rates generally follow the Clausius-Clapeyron equation, thus a warmer environment leads to higher rain rates (Trenberth et al 2003, Scoccimarro et al 2014, Stansfield and Reed 2023. Another important aspect for the quantification of the total amount of TC precipitation reaching the surface of the planet is the TC lifetime (Larson et al 2005, Dare et al 2012, Scoccimarro et al 2021, Zhu and Quiring 2022. With this said, the lifetime accumulated rainfall (LAR), an important parameter used to measure the total influence of individual TCs on large-scale water budgets, results primarily determined by TC duration, which accounts for around 70% of the variance (Lavender and McBride 2021).…”