Changing Spatial Structure of Summer Heavy Rainfall, Using Convection‐Permitting Ensemble

Chen, Yuting; Paschalis, Alec; Kendon, Elizabeth J.; Kim, Dongkyun; Onof, Christian

doi:10.1029/2020gl090903

Cited by 27 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 68 publications

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“…Our results, which pertain to daily precipitation, assume no change in the spatial structure of precipitation events at scales smaller than the resolutions of the used climate models. Improvements in the statistical description of the precipitating systems at multiple temporal and spatial scales derived from observations and/or convection‐permitting models could fill this gap by quantifying their structural response to external forcing (Cannon & Innocenti, 2019; Chen et al., 2020; Marra, Borga, et al., 2020; Peleg et al., 2018; Wasko et al., 2016).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward Narrowing Uncertainty in Future Projections of Local Extreme Precipitation

Marra

Armon

Adam

et al. 2021

Geophysical Research Letters

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Projections of extreme precipitation based on modern climate models suffer from large uncertainties. Specifically, unresolved physics and natural variability limit the ability of climate models to provide actionable information on impacts and risks at the regional, watershed and city scales relevant for practical applications. Here, we show that the interaction of precipitating systems with local features can constrain the statistical description of extreme precipitation. These observational constraints can be used to project local extremes of low yearly exceedance probability (e.g., 100‐year events) using synoptic‐scale information from climate models, which is generally represented more accurately than the local scales, and without requiring climate models to explicitly resolve extremes. The novel approach, demonstrated here over the south‐eastern Mediterranean, offers a path for improving the predictability of local statistics of extremes in a changing climate, independent of pending improvements in climate models at regional and local scales.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward Narrowing Uncertainty in Future Projections of Local Extreme Precipitation

Marra

Armon

Adam

et al. 2021

Geophysical Research Letters

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“…Both studies showed that total rain area and the convective core area scale with temperature in opposite directions: total area exhibits a negative scaling, while the area of the convective cores is positively scaled with temperature; this is probably related to an enhanced moisture convergence into the convective cores from the total storm extent. In contrast, results from studies of future extreme precipitation in the Netherlands and in the UK show the area of the storms is expected to increase with global warming (Y. Chen, Paschalis, et al., 2020; Lochbihler et al., 2017, 2019), which may indicate a regional dependence in the scaling of the rain area, but this topic should be addressed in future studies (Fowler, Lenderink, et al., 2021).…”

Section: Summary and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…Future rainstorms simulated in this work show quite a difference in rainfall patterns compared to historic rainstorms, mainly being more concentrated in both space and time. Given that the conditional rain rate increases, one might expect an increase in total precipitation during HPEs, as projected, for example, over Europe (e.g., Y. Chen, Paschalis, et al., 2020; Hawcroft et al., 2018; Kendon et al., 2014). However, two other factors, less often addressed, negatively affect total rainfall: the size of the rain area, and the duration of the events.…”

Section: Summary and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reduced Rainfall in Future Heavy Precipitation Events Related to Contracted Rain Area Despite Increased Rain Rate

et al. 2021

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Heavy precipitation events (HPEs) can lead to deadly and costly natural disasters and are critical to the hydrological budget in regions where rainfall variability is high and water resources depend on individual storms. Thus, reliable projections of such events in the future are needed. To provide high‐resolution projections under the RCP8.5 scenario for HPEs at the end of the 21st century, and to understand the changes in sub‐hourly to daily rainfall patterns, weather research and forecasting (WRF) model simulations of 41 historic HPEs in the eastern Mediterranean are compared with “pseudo global warming” simulations of the same events. This paper presents the changes in rainfall patterns in future storms, decomposed into storms' mean conditional rain rate, duration, and area. A major decrease in rainfall accumulation (−30% averaged across events) is found throughout future HPEs. This decrease results from a substantial reduction of the rain area of storms (−40%) and occurs despite an increase in the mean conditional rain intensity (+15%). The duration of the HPEs decreases (−9%) in future simulations. Regionally maximal 10‐min rain rates increase (+22%), whereas over most of the region, long‐duration rain rates decrease. The consistency of results across events, driven by varying synoptic conditions, suggests that these changes have low sensitivity to the specific synoptic evolution during the events. Future HPEs in the eastern Mediterranean will therefore likely be drier and more spatiotemporally concentrated, with substantial implications on hydrological outcomes of storms.

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“…Moreover, CPRCM projections were performed to assess the impacts of climate change on the solar resources (Carreño et al, 2020) that would consequently affect power system operations (Craig et al, 2019) and high energy stress periods in a region (Texas) with high wind and solar penetrations (Craig et al, 2020). Finally, Chen et al (2021) highlighted the conflicting surface solar radiation projections over the United States from GCMs, RCMs, and CPRCMs that are likely associated with the transient aerosol scenarios used in certain models.…”

Section: Evaluation Of Renewable Energy Resources and Wind Farm Impacts On Atmospheric Conditionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The climate change signals of the different CPRCM simulations seem to converge, likely a consequence of the more realistic representation of local storm dynamics, providing a sign of increased accuracy of future changes of extreme summer precipitation. In a study covering the entire UK using a CPRCM ensemble, Chen et al (2021) projected that summer heavy rainfall will be more intense, with a faster translation speed, and a wider spatial coverage.…”

Section: Climate Change Projections Using Cprcmsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Lucas‐Picher

Argüeso

Brisson

et al. 2021

WIREs Climate Change

123

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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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Changing Spatial Structure of Summer Heavy Rainfall, Using Convection‐Permitting Ensemble

Cited by 27 publications

References 68 publications

Toward Narrowing Uncertainty in Future Projections of Local Extreme Precipitation

Toward Narrowing Uncertainty in Future Projections of Local Extreme Precipitation

Reduced Rainfall in Future Heavy Precipitation Events Related to Contracted Rain Area Despite Increased Rain Rate

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

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