The Diurnal Nature of Future Extreme Precipitation Intensification

Meredith, Edmund P.; Ulbrich, Uwe; Rust, Henning W.

doi:10.1029/2019gl082385

Cited by 30 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 56 publications

(95 reference statements)

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“…This is emphatically the case for extremes, the class of event for which higher spatiotemporal resolutions are of most interest. We conclude by re-stating the utility of CPMs as a tool for studying extreme precipitation, associated mechanisms and changes therein at the hourly scale [16,18], and by extending this endorsement to extreme precipitation at subhourly timescales. additionally received part funding from the EUREX project of the Helmholtz Association (HRJRG-308).…”

Section: Further Discussion and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 85%

“…Extensive work evaluating hourly precipitation in CPMs [3, 7-10, 12, 13] has enabled a growing number of CPM studies of future hourly precipitation [18,[56][57][58] and given confidence in the resulting projections. To date, this has not been the case with subhourly CPM precipitation.…”

Section: Further Discussion and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…CPMs also reduce the 'drizzle problem' found in coarser models [7], whereby light rainfall is too persistent, and tend to more realistically represent the frequency of short intense events [3,8]. In addition to a better representation of vertical mixing [14], the added value of CPMs may extend to future changes in precipitation extremes: CPMs have shown enhanced intensification of extremes in response to warming [15][16][17] and diurnal differences in future scaling [18] for certain regions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Subhourly rainfall in a convection-permitting model

Meredith

Ulbrich

Rust

2020

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Convection-permitting models (CPMs)-the newest generation of high-resolution climate modelshave been shown to greatly improve the representation of subdaily and hourly precipitation, in particular for extreme rainfall. Intense precipitation events, however, often occur on subhourly timescales. The distribution of subhourly precipitation, extreme or otherwise, during a rain event can furthermore have important knock-on effects on hydrological processes. Little is known about how well CPMs represent precipitation at the subhourly timescale, compared to the hourly. Here we perform multi-decadal CPM simulations centred over Catalonia and, comparing with a high temporal-resolution gauge network, find that the CPM simulates subhourly precipitation at least as well as hourly precipitation is simulated. While the CPM inherits a dry bias found in its parent model, across a range of diagnostics and aggregation times (5, 15, 30 and 60 min) we find no consistent evidence that the CPM precipitation bias worsens with shortening temporal aggregation. We furthermore show that the CPM excels in its representation of subhourly extremes, extending previous findings at the hourly timescale. Our findings support the use of CPMs for modelling subhourly rainfall and add confidence to CPM-based climate projections of future changes in subhourly precipitation, particularly for extremes.

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Section: Further Discussion and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 85%

Section: Further Discussion and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Subhourly rainfall in a convection-permitting model

Meredith

Ulbrich

Rust

2020

Environ. Res. Lett.

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“…These results are in line with the findings of Meredith et al . (2019), who report a shift in the diurnal cycle of extreme precipitation from afternoon to early morning hours for future conditions under RCP8.5 using COSMO‐CLM‐simulations driven by MPI‐ESM.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Convective rain cell characteristics and scaling in climate projections for Germany

Purr

Brisson

Ahrens

2021

Intl Journal of Climatology

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Extreme convective precipitation is expected to increase with global warming. However, the rate of increase and the understanding of contributing processes remain highly uncertain. We investigated characteristics of convective rain cells like area, intensity, and lifetime as simulated by a convection‐permitting climate model in the area of Germany under historical (1976–2005) and future (end‐of‐century, RCP8.5 scenario) conditions. To this end, a tracking algorithm was applied to 5‐min precipitation output. While the number of convective cells is virtually similar under historical and future conditions, there are more intense and larger cells in the future. This yields an increase in hourly precipitation extremes, although mean precipitation decreases. The relative change in the frequency distributions of area, intensity, and precipitation sum per cell is highest for the most extreme percentiles, suggesting that extreme events intensify the most. Furthermore, we investigated the temperature and moisture scaling of cell characteristics. The temperature scaling drops off at high temperatures, with a shift in drop‐off towards higher temperatures in the future, allowing for higher peak values. In contrast, dew point temperature scaling shows consistent rates across the whole dew point range. Cell characteristics scale at varying rates, either below (mean intensity), at about (maximum intensity and area), or above (precipitation sum) the Clausius–Clapeyron rate. Thus, the widely investigated extreme precipitation scaling at fixed locations is a complex product of the scaling of different cell characteristics. The dew point scaling rates and absolute values of the scaling curves in historical and future conditions are closest for the highest percentiles. Therefore, near‐surface humidity provides a good predictor for the upper limit of for example, maximum intensity and total precipitation of individual convective cells. However, the frequency distribution of the number of cells depending on dew point temperature changes in the future, preventing statistical inference of extreme precipitation from near‐surface humidity.

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“…Intensification of subdaily rainfall is inhibited in regions and seasons where available moisture is limited, 326 and simulations indicate that scaling can depend on time of day. 340 However, a fixed threshold temperature above which precipitation is limited by moisture availability is not supported by recent modeling evidence. 133,217,326 Enhanced latent heating of the atmosphere by more "juicy" storms can also suppress convection at larger scales due to atmospheric stabilization ( Fig.…”

Section: Changes In Characteristics Of Precipitation and Hydrologymentioning

confidence: 97%

Advances in understanding large‐scale responses of the water cycle to climate change

Allan

Barlow

Byrne

et al. 2020

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

366

153

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Globally, thermodynamics explains an increase in atmospheric water vapor with warming of around 7%/°C near to the surface. In contrast, global precipitation and evaporation are constrained by the Earth's energy balance to increase at ∼2-3%/°C. However, this rate of increase is suppressed by rapid atmospheric adjustments in response to greenhouse gases and absorbing aerosols that directly alter the atmospheric energy budget. Rapid adjustments to forcings, cooling effects from scattering aerosol, and observational uncertainty can explain why observed global precipitation responses are currently difficult to detect but are expected to emerge and accelerate as warming increases and aerosol forcing diminishes. Precipitation increases with warming are expected to be smaller over land than ocean due to limitations on moisture convergence, exacerbated by feedbacks and affected by rapid adjustments. Thermodynamic increases in atmospheric moisture fluxes amplify wet and dry events, driving an intensification of precipitation extremes. The rate of intensification can deviate from a simple thermodynamic response due to in-storm and larger-scale feedback processes, while changes in large-scale dynamics and catchment characteristics further modulate the frequency of flooding in response to precipitation increases. Changes in atmospheric circulation in response to radiative forcing and evolving surface temperature patterns are capable of dominating water cycle changes in some regions. Moreover, the direct impact of human activities on the water cycle through water abstraction, irrigation, and land use change is already a significant component of regional water cycle change and is expected to further increase in importance as water demand grows with global population.

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The Diurnal Nature of Future Extreme Precipitation Intensification

Cited by 30 publications

References 56 publications

Subhourly rainfall in a convection-permitting model

Subhourly rainfall in a convection-permitting model

Convective rain cell characteristics and scaling in climate projections for Germany

Advances in understanding large‐scale responses of the water cycle to climate change

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