Complexity in estimating past and future extreme short-duration rainfall

Nature Geoscience

Volumn 10, Issue 4, 2017, Pages 255-259

  Zhang, Xuebin ^a   Zwiers, Francis W ^b   Li, Guilong ^a   Wan, Hui ^a   Cannon, Alex J ^a  

^a ENVIRONMENT CANADA   (Canada)

^b UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ATMOSPHERIC CONVECTION; CLIMATE MODELING; COMPLEXITY; EXTREME EVENT; FUTURE PROSPECT; RAINFALL; REGIONAL CLIMATE; TEMPERATURE; WARMING; WATER CONTENT;

EID: 85016936163     PISSN: 17520894     EISSN: 17520908     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1038/ngeo2911     Document Type: Article

References (51)

1. Summary for Policymakers in Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis (eds Stocker, T. F. et al.) 1-27 (IPCC, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2013).
2. Boer, G. J. Climate change and the regulation of the surface moisture and energy budgets. Clim. Dynam. 8, 225-239 (1993).
3. Allen, M. R. & Ingram, W. J. Constraints on future changes in climate and the hydrological cycle. Nature 419, 224-232 (2002).
4. Trenberth, K. E. Conceptual framework for changes of extremes of the hydrological cycle with climate change. Climatic Change 42, 327-339 (1999).
5. Westra, S., Alexander, L. V. & Zwiers, F. W. Global increasing trends in annual maximum daily precipitation. J. Clim. 26, 3904-3918 (2013).
6. Westra, S. et al. Future changes to the intensity and frequency of short-duration extreme rainfall. Rev. Geophys. 52, 522-555 (2014).
7. O'Gorman, P. A. Precipitation extreme under climate change. Curr. Clim. Change Rep. 1, 49-59 (2015).
8. Kharin, V. V., Zwiers, F. W., Zhang, X. & Wehner, M. Changes in temperature and precipitation extremes in the CMIP5 ensemble. Climatic Change 119, 345-357 (2013).
9. Zhang, X., Wan, H., Zwiers, F. W., Hegerl, G. C. & Min, S.-K. Attributing intensification of precipitation extremes to human influence. Geophy. Res. Lett. 40, 5252-5257 (2013).
10. O'Gorman, P. & Schneider, T. The physical basis for increases in precipitation extremes in simulations of 21st-century climate change. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 106, 14773-14777 (2009).
11. Shi, X. & Durran, D. R. The response of orographic precipitation over idealized mid-latitude mountains due to global increases in CO2. J. Clim. 27, 3938-3956 (2014).
12. Shi, X. & Durran, D. R. Sensitivities of extreme precipitation to global warming are lower over mountain than over oceans and plains. J. Clim. 29, 4779-4791 (2016).
13. O'Gorman, P. A. Sensitivity of tropical precipitation extremes to climate change. Nat. Geosci. 5, 697-700 (2012).
14. Kumar, S. et al. Terrestrial contribution to the heterogeneity in hydrological changes under global warming. Wat. Resour. Res. 52, 3127-3142 (2016).
15. O'Gorman, P. A. & Muller, C. J. How closely do changes in surface and column water vapor follow Clausius-Clapeyron scaling in climate change simulations? Environ. Res. Lett. 5, 025207 (2010).
16. Eden, J. M., Wolter, K., Otto, F. E. L. & van Oldenborgh, G. J. Multi-method attribution analysis of extreme precipitation in Boulder, Colorado. Environ. Res. Lett. 11, 124009 (2016).
17. Min, S. K., Zhang, X., Zwiers, F. W. & Hegerl, G. C. Human contribution to more-intense precipitation extremes. Nature 470, 378-381 (2011).
18. Lenderink, G. & Attema, J. A simple scaling approach to produce climate scenarios of local precipitation extremes for the Netherlands. Environ. Res. Lett. 10, 085001 (2015).
19. Wasko, C., Sharma, A. & Johnson, F. Does storm duration modulate the extreme precipitation-temperature scaling relationship? Geophys. Res. Lett. 42, 8783-8790 (2015).
20. Lenderink, G. & van Meijgaard, E. Increase in hourly precipitation extremes beyond expectations from temperature changes. Nat. Geosci. 1, 511-514 (2008).
21. Lenderink, G. & van Meijgaard, E. Linking increases in hourly precipitation extremes to atmospheric temperature and moisture changes. Environ. Res. Lett. 5, 025208 (2010).
22. Hardwick-Jones, R., Westra, S. & Sharma, A. Observed relationships between extreme sub-daily precipitation, surface temperature, and relative humidity. Geophys. Res. Lett. 37, L22805 (2010).
23. Lenderink, G., Mok, H. Y., Lee, T. C. & Van Oldenborgh G. J. Scaling and trends of hourly precipitation extremes in two different climate zones-Hong Kong and the Netherlands. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 8, 4701-4719 (2011).
24. Shaw, S. B., Royem, A. A. & Riha, S. J. The relationship between extreme hourly precipitation and surface temperatures in different hydroclimatic regions of the United States. J. Hydrometeorol. 12, 319-325 (2011).
25. Utsumi, N., Seto, S., Kanae, S., Maeda, E. E. & Oki, T. Does higher surface temperature intensify extreme precipitation? Geophys. Res. Lett. 38, L16708 (2011).
26. Yu, R. & Li, J. Hourly rainfall changes in response to surface air temperature over eastern contiguous China. J. Clim. 25, 6851-6861 (2012).
27. Mishra, V., Wallace, J. M. & Lettenmaier, D. P. Relationship between hourly extreme precipitation and local air temperature in the United States. Geophys. Res. Lett. 39, L16403 (2012).
28. Berg, P. & Haerter, J. O. Unexpected increase in precipitation intensity with temperature-a result of mixing precipitation types? Atmos. Res. 119, 56-61 (2013).
29. Berg, P., Moseley, C. & Haerter, J. O. Strong increase in convective precipitation in response to higher temperatures. Nat. Geosci. 6, 181-185 (2013).
30. Drobinski, P., Alonzo, B., Bastin, S., Da Silva, N. & Muller, C. J. Scaling of precipitation extremes with temperature in the French Mediterranean region: what explains the hook shape? J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 121, 3100-3119 (2016a).
31. Drobinski, P. et al. Scaling precipitation extremes with temperature in the Mediterranean: past climate assessment and projection in anthropogenic scenarios. Clim. Dynam. http://dx. doi. org/10. 1007/s00382-016-3083-x (2016).
32. Wasko, C. & Sharma, A. Quantile regression for investigating scaling of extreme precipitation with temperature. Wat. Resour. Res. 50, 3608-3614 (2014).
33. Ban, N., Schmidli, J. & Schaer, C. Heavy precipitation in a changing climate: does short-term summer precipitation increase faster? Geophys. Res. Lett. 42, 1165-1172 (2015).
34. Chan, S. C. et al. Downturn in scaling of UK extreme rainfall with temperature for future hottest days. Nat. Geosci. 9, 24-28 (2016).
35. Molnar, P., Fatichi, S., Gaál, L., Szolgay, J. & Burlando, P. Storm type effects on super Clausius-Clapeyron scaling of intense rainstorm properties with air temperature. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 19, 1753-1766 (2015).
36. Deser, C., Phillips, A., Bourdette, V. & Teng, H. Y. Uncertainty in climate change projections: the role of internal variability. Clim. Dynam. 38, 527-546 (2012).
37. Shepherd, T. G. Atmospheric circulation as a source of uncertainty in climate change projections. Nat. Geosci. 7, 703-708 (2014).
38. Trenberth, K. E., Fasullo, J. T. & Shepherd, T. G. Attribution of climate extreme events. Nat. Clim. Change 5, 725-730 (2015).
39. Hartmann, D. L. et al. in Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis (eds Stocker, T. F. et al.) 159-254 (IPCC, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2013).
40. Prein, A. F. et al. The future intensification of hourly precipitation extremes. Nat. Clim. Change 7, 48-52 (2017).
41. Bindoff, N. L. et al. in Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis (eds Stocker, T. F. et al.) 867-952 (IPCC, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2013).
42. Zhang, X. et al. WCRP Grand Challenge: Understanding and Predicting Weather and Climate Extremes (World Climate Research Programme, 2015); http://go. nature. com/2lPeg0H
43. Alexander, L. V., Zhang, X., Hegerl, G. C. & Seneviratne, S. I. Implementation Plan for WCRP Grand Challenge on Understanding and Predicting Weather and Climate Extremes (World Climate Research Programme, 2016); http://go. nature. com/2moUtH7
44. Hanel, M. & Buishand, T. A. On the value of hourly precipitation extremes in regional climate model simulations. J. Hydrol. 393, 265-273 (2010).
45. Gregersen, I. B. et al. Assessing future climatic changes of rainfall extremes at small spatio-temporal scales. Climatic Change 118, 783-797 (2013).
46. Ban, N., Schmidli, J. & Schaer, C. Evaluation of the convection-resolving regional climate modeling approach in decade-long simulations. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 119, 7889-7907 (2014).
47. Scinocca, J. F. & McFarlane, N. A. The variability of modeled tropical precipitation. J. Atmos. Sci. 61, 1993-2015 (2004).
48. Takayabu I. & Hibino, K. The skilful time scale of climate models. J. Meteorol. Soc. Japan 94A, 191-197 (2016).
49. Kendon E. J. et al. Heavier summer downpours with climate change revealed by weather forecast resolution model. Nat. Clim. Change 4, 570-576 (2014).
50. Singh M. S. & O'Gorman, P. A. Influence of microphysics on the scaling of precipitation extremes with temperature. Geophys. Res. Lett. 41, 6037-6044 (2014).
51. Hewitt, C. D. Ensembles-based predictions of climate changes and their impacts. Eos Trans. AGU 85, 566-566 (2004).