Future extreme precipitation intensities based on a historic event

Abstract

Abstract. In a warmer climate, it is expected that precipitation intensities will increase, and form a considerable risk of high-impact precipitation extremes. This study applies three methods to transform a historic extreme precipitation event in the Netherlands to a similar event in a future warmer climate, thus compiling a "future weather" scenario. The first method uses an observation-based non-linear relation between the hourly-observed summer precipitation and the antecedent dew-point temperature (the P i -T d relation). The second method simulates the same event by using the convective-permitting numerical weather model (NWP) model HARMONIE, for both present-day and future warmer conditions. The third method is similar to the first method, but applies a simple linear delta transformation to the historic data by using indicators from The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI)'14 climate scenarios. A comparison of the three methods shows comparable intensity changes, ranging from below the Clausius-Clapeyron (CC) scaling to a 3 times CC increase per degree of warming. In the NWP model, the position of the events is somewhat different; due to small wind and convection changes, the intensity changes somewhat differ with time, but the total spatial area covered by heavy precipitation does not change with the temperature increase. The P i -T d method is simple and time efficient compared to numerical models. The outcome can be used directly for hydrological and climatological studies and for impact analysis, such as flood-risk assessments.

Analysis of urban rainfall from hourly to seasonal scales using high‐resolution radar observations in the Netherlands

“…Spatial coverage of urban areas along the Dutch west coast has expanded from 14% in 1960 to 33% in 2010, coinciding with increased precipitation downwind of urban areas (Daniels et al ., ). Extreme precipitation events can cause large disruptions in the Netherlands, such as the event of July 28, 2014, which had a return period of 5–15 years (Van Oldenborgh and Lenderink, ; Manola et al ., ) and lead to flooding, property damage of €10 M, as well as widespread traffic disruption. Because the most severe damage is often reported in urban areas (Ward et al ., ) and because Dutch cities are continuously growing, it is essential to develop knowledge of the detailed climatological characteristics of precipitation and to better understand the urban influence on precipitation, especially for the Dutch capital, Amsterdam.…”

Modeling the Scaling of Short‐Duration Precipitation Extremes With Temperature

“…The most reliable modeled rainfall extremes are the ones from regional climate models at convection-permitting scales; however, these are scarce (Kendon et al, 2014;Tabari et al, 2016;Termonia et al, 2018). The results derived from this work may also serve for in-depth regional studies (Schroeer & Kirchengast, 2018), or the simulation of extreme precipitation events in a warmer climate (Hazeleger et al, 2015;Manola et al, 2018).…”

Uncovering the shortcomings of a weather typing based statistical downscaling method

“…Application of this scaling rate to precipitation intensities is valid assuming that extreme precipitation amounts are controlled by local moisture availability and are not influenced by large scale atmospheric circulation patterns. However, in reality, physical processes interact and also higher scaling rates are found (Barbero et al, 2018;Blenkinsop et al, 2018;Manola et 2018; Lenderink et al, 2017;Zhang et al, 2017). The CC relation is determined on annual time scale.…”

“…For each event, the corresponding daily average temperature is determined. Next, following the principle described in (Manola et al, 2018), the precipitation amounts and corresponding temperatures are classified in moving temperature bins and per bin sorted from low to high. In the end, the magnification of the 90 th , 95 th , 99 th and 99.9 th percentile precipitation amount over increasing temperature bins is investigated.…”