Seasonality, intensity, and duration of rainfall extremes change in a warmer climate

Publikationstyp
Journal Article
Date Issued
2021-03-01
Sprache
English
Author(s)
Moustakis, Yiannis  
Papalexiou, Simon Michael  
Onof, Christian  
Paschalis, Athanasios  
TORE-URI
https://hdl.handle.net/11420/57813
Journal
Earth's future  
Volume
9
Issue
3
Article Number
e2020EF001824
Citation
Earth's future 9 (3): e2020EF001824 (2021)
Publisher DOI
10.1029/2020EF001824
Scopus ID
2-s2.0-85103234960
Publisher
Wiley
Precipitation extremes are expected to intensify under climate change with consequent impacts in flooding and ecosystem functioning. Here we use station data and high-resolution simulations from the WRF convection permitting climate model (∼4 km, 1 h) over the US to assess future changes in hourly precipitation extremes. It is demonstrated that hourly precipitation extremes and storm depths are expected to intensify under climate change and what is now a 20-year rainfall will become a 7-year rainfall on average for ∼ 75% of gridpoints over the US. This intensification is mostly expressed as an increase in rainfall tail heaviness. Statistically significant changes in the seasonality and duration of rainfall extremes are also exhibited over ∼ 95% of the domain. Our results suggest more non-linear future precipitation extremes with shorter spell duration that are distributed more uniformly throughout the year.
Subjects
climate change
convection-permitting models
rainfall extremes
rainfall seasonality
DDC Class
363.7: Environmental Problems