Challenges and outlook for convection-permitting climate modelling

Kendon, Elizabeth J.; Prein, Andreas F.; Senior, C. A.; Stirling, Alison

doi:10.1098/rsta.2019.0547

Cited by 107 publications

(109 citation statements)

References 133 publications

(174 reference statements)

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“…Over the past decade, computational advances and improvements in CPMs have enabled a step-change in the capacity of the climate modelling community to simulate short-duration rainfall extremes (see [45]). CPMs substantially improve the simulation of local storm dynamics and better capture the details of convective organization but some biases remain, such as an overestimation of heavy rainfall due to under-resolved cloud processes such as entrainment (e.g.…”

Section: The Benefits Of Convection-permitting Climate Modellingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards advancing scientific knowledge of climate change impacts on short-duration rainfall extremes

Fowler

Ali

Allan

et al. 2021

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A.

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A large number of recent studies have aimed at understanding short-duration rainfall extremes, due to their impacts on flash floods, landslides and debris flows and potential for these to worsen with global warming. This has been led in a concerted international effort by the INTENSE Crosscutting Project of the GEWEX (Global Energy and Water Exchanges) Hydroclimatology Panel. Here, we summarize the main findings so far and suggest future directions for research, including: the benefits of convection-permitting climate modelling; towards understanding mechanisms of change; the usefulness of temperature-scaling relations; towards detecting and attributing extreme rainfall change; and the need for international coordination and collaboration. Evidence suggests that the intensity of long-duration (1 day+) heavy precipitation increases with climate warming close to the Clausius–Clapeyron (CC) rate (6–7% K −1 ), although large-scale circulation changes affect this response regionally. However, rare events can scale at higher rates, and localized heavy short-duration (hourly and sub-hourly) intensities can respond more strongly (e.g. 2 × CC instead of CC). Day-to-day scaling of short-duration intensities supports a higher scaling, with mechanisms proposed for this related to local-scale dynamics of convective storms, but its relevance to climate change is not clear. Uncertainty in changes to precipitation extremes remains and is influenced by many factors, including large-scale circulation, convective storm dynamics andstratification. Despite this, recent research has increased confidence in both the detectability and understanding of changes in various aspects of intense short-duration rainfall. To make further progress, the international coordination of datasets, model experiments and evaluations will be required, with consistent and standardized comparison methods and metrics, and recommendations are made for these frameworks. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Intensification of short-duration rainfall extremes and implications for flash flood risks’.

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Section: The Benefits Of Convection-permitting Climate Modellingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards advancing scientific knowledge of climate change impacts on short-duration rainfall extremes

Fowler

Ali

Allan

et al. 2021

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A.

Self Cite

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“…Thus, it seems fair to say that research with CPRCMs is still in its infancy and stands where RCMs were about 20 years ago when large coordinated projects such as ENSEMBLES and NARCCAP were launched. CPRCMs are mostly based on NWP models and progress is underway to improve them and reduce their systematic biases (Kendon et al, 2021). Fortunately, the CPRCM community is now well organized (Coppola et al, 2020; Jacob et al, 2020) and some collaborative initiatives such as the CORDEX‐FPS and EUCP projects are already delivering interesting outcomes (Ban et al, 2021; Pichelli et al, 2021).…”

Section: Conclusion: Next Steps For Exploiting Cprcm Benefitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Convection‐permitting modeling with regional climate models: Latest developments and next steps

Lucas‐Picher

Argüeso

Brisson

et al. 2021

WIREs Climate Change

121

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Approximately 10 years ago, convection-permitting regional climate models (CPRCMs) emerged as a promising computationally affordable tool to produce fine resolution (1-4 km) decadal-long climate simulations with explicitly resolved deep convection. This explicit representation is expected to reduce climate projection uncertainty related to deep convection parameterizations found in most climate models. A recent surge in CPRCM decadal simulations over larger domains, sometimes covering continents, has led to important insights into CPRCM advantages and limitations. Furthermore, new observational gridded datasets with fine spatial and temporal ($1 km; $1 h) resolutions have leveraged additional knowledge through evaluations of the added value of CPRCMs. With an improved coordination in the frame of ongoing international initiatives, the production of ensembles of CPRCM simulations is expected to provide more robust climate projections and a better identification of their associated uncertainties. This review paper presents an overview of the methodology to produce CPRCM simulations and the latest research on the related added value in current and future climates. Impact studies that are already taking advantage of these new CPRCM simulations are highlighted. This review paper ends by proposing next steps that could be accomplished to continue exploiting the full potential of CPRCMs.

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“…However, CPMs are relatively new models that are still considered to be in their infancy, which explains why they still suffer from several biases, such as their precipitation being too intense (Kendon et al 2014) and being too dry and too warm over some continental regions (Berthou et al 2020;Barlage et al 2021). Many of these biases are currently addressed through active ongoing model developments that include calibration and the addition (or improvements) of some model components, including groundwater processes and turbulent schemes (Kendon et al 2021). To eliminate these biases, bias correction is generally recommended, but the lack of reliable high-resolution (both spatially and temporally) gridded datasets restrains its wide use (Argüeso et al 2013).…”

Section: Ability Of Climate Models To Simulate Extreme Rainfallmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate Change and Rainfall Intensity–Duration–Frequency Curves: Overview of Science and Guidelines for Adaptation

et al. 2021

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One of the most important impacts of a future warmer climate is the projected increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme rainfall events. This increasing trend in extreme rainfall is seen in both the observational record and climate model projections. However, a thorough review of the recent scientific literature paints a complex picture in which the intensification of rainfall extremes depends on a multitude of factors. While some projected rainfall indices follow the Clausius-Clapeyron relationship scaling of an ∼7% increase in rainfall per 1°C of warming, there is substantial evidence that this scaling depends on rainfall extremes frequency, with longer return period events seeing larger increases, leading to super Clausius-Clapeyron scaling in some cases. The intensification of extreme rainfall events is now well documented at the daily scale but is less clear at the subdaily scale. In recent years, climate model simulations at a finer spatial and temporal resolution, including convection-permitting models, have provided more reliable projections of subdaily rainfall. Recent analyses indicate that rainfall scaling may also increase as a function of duration, such that shorter-duration, longer return period events will likely see the largest rainfall increases in a warmer climate. This has broad implications on the design and the use of rainfall intensity-duration-frequency (IDF) curves, for which both an overall increase in magnitude and a steepening can now be predicted. This paper also presents an overview of measures that have been adopted by various governing bodies to adapt IDF curves to the changing climate. Current measures vary from multiplying historical design rainfall by a simple constant percentage to modulating correction factors based on return periods and to scaling them to the Clausius-Clapeyron relationship based on projected temperature increases. All of these current measures fail to recognize a possible super Clausius-Clapeyron scaling of extreme rainfall and, perhaps more importantly, the increasing scaling toward shorter-duration rainfall and the most extreme rainfall events that will significantly impact stormwater runoff in cities and in small rural catchments. This paper discusses the remaining scientific gaps and offers technical recommendations for practitioners on how to adapt IDF curves to improve climate resilience.

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Challenges and outlook for convection-permitting climate modelling

Cited by 107 publications

References 133 publications

Towards advancing scientific knowledge of climate change impacts on short-duration rainfall extremes

Towards advancing scientific knowledge of climate change impacts on short-duration rainfall extremes

Convection‐permitting modeling with regional climate models: Latest developments and next steps

Climate Change and Rainfall Intensity–Duration–Frequency Curves: Overview of Science and Guidelines for Adaptation

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