Spatiotemporal Variability in Extreme Precipitation in China from Observations and Projections

Abstract

Extreme precipitation events, which have intensified with global warming over the past several decades, will become more intense in the future according to model projections. Although many studies have been performed, the occurrence patterns for extreme precipitation events in past and future periods in China remain unresolved. Additionally, few studies have explained how extreme precipitation events developed over the past 58 years and how they will evolve in the next 90 years as global warming becomes much more serious. In this paper, we evaluated the spatiotemporal characteristics of extreme precipitation events using indices for the frequency, quantity, intensity, and proportion of extreme precipitation, which were proposed by the World Meteorological Organization. We simultaneously analyzed the spatiotemporal characteristics of extreme precipitation in China from 2011 to 2100 using data obtained from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) models. Despite the fixed threshold, 95th percentile precipitation values were also used as the extreme precipitation threshold to reduce the influence of various rainfall events caused by different geographic locations; then, eight extreme precipitation indices (EPIs) were calculated to evaluate extreme precipitation in China. We found that the spatial characteristics of the eight EPIs exhibited downward trends from south to north. In the periods 1960-2017 and 2011-2100, trends in the EPIs were positive, but there were differences between different regions. In the past 58 years, the extreme precipitation increased in the northwest, southeast, and the Tibet Plateau of China, while decreased in northern China. Almost all the trends of EPIs are positive in the next two periods (2011-2055 and 2056-2100) except for some EPIs, such as intensity of extreme precipitation, which decrease in southeastern China in the second period . This study suggests that the frequency of extreme precipitation events in China will progressively increase, which implies that a substantial burden will be placed on social economies and terrestrial ecological processes.

Analysis of Annual and Seasonal Precipitation Variation in the Qinba Mountain area, China

“…Based on the current literature 26,27 , a downward trend was observed in the national precipitation, after 1980, and the annual precipitation showed a downward trend in the northeast and the northwest of China. R10mm and the CWD all showed a downward trend in the Yangtze River Basin 6,7 , while the CDD showed an upward trend, especially as the SDII, the RX1day, the RX5day, and the R95p also showed an upward trend.…”

The Multi-Scale Temporal Variability of Extreme Precipitation in the Source Region of the Yellow River

“…Extreme climate events have received increasing attention from public, government and academic communities due to their catastrophic effects on agriculture, ecology and life [1][2][3][4]. Changes in climate directly enhance precipitation extremes as global warming induces a large increase in atmospheric water vapor content which accelerates the hydrologic cycle [5][6][7].…”

Future Predictions of Rainfall and Temperature Using GCM and ANN for Arid Regions: A Case Study for the Qassim Region, Saudi Arabia

“…Research on climate change due to global warming has achieved high importance over the past few decades [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. The magnitude of climatic changes including variations in temperature and rainfall differs in various parts of the world [4,5,8,9]. Consequently, some arid regions are expected to experience droughts while others may be affected by heavy rainfalls.…”