Characterization of the long-term changes in moisture, clouds and precipitation in the ascending and descending branches of the Hadley Circulation

Mathew, Sneha Susan; Kumar, Karanam Kishore

doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2018.12.047

Cited by 16 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…This has been linked to a tropical expansion due the Earth's Hadley cells expanding poleward (Grise et al, 2018;Staten et al, 2018) and intensifying (Mitas & Clement, 2005). The result is that more of Australia's southern climate is trending toward dry subtropical with reduced autumn and winter rainfall (Cai & Cowan, 2013;Mathew & Kumar, 2019;Turton, 2017), corresponding to the seasons in which flooding generally occurs in the south of Australia. Changes in mean rainfall are broadly consistent with extreme rainfall decreases in the autumn months, and increases in the summer months (Zheng et al, 2015).…”

Section: Climate Changes Influencing Flood Timing Across Australiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Changes in Antecedent Soil Moisture Modulate Flood Seasonality in a Changing Climate

Wasko

Peel

2020

Water Resources Research

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Due to difficulties in identifying a climate change signal in flood magnitude, it has been suggested that shifts in flood timing, that is, the day of annual streamflow maxima, may be detectable. Here, we use high‐quality streamflow, largely free of snowmelt, from 221 catchments across Australia to investigate the influence of shifts in soil moisture and rainfall timing on annual streamflow maxima timing. In tropical areas we find that flood timing is strongly linked to the timing of both rainfall and soil moisture annual maxima. However, in southern Australia flood timing is more correlated with soil moisture maxima than rainfall maxima. The link between flood, soil moisture, and rainfall timing is confounded by event severity: For less extreme events flood timing is more likely to correspond to soil moisture timing, whereas rainfall timing becomes increasingly important as flood severity increases. Using circular regression to investigate nonstationarity, we find that flood timing is shifting to earlier in the year in the tropics and later in the year in the southwest of the continent, consistent with changes in mean and extreme rainfall and shifts in soil moisture timing due to tropical expansion. In southeast Australia, there is evidence that the mechanisms controlling flood seasonality are changing with a reversal of trends post Millennium Drought. Overall, changes in soil moisture timing, compared to changes in rainfall timing, are found to have a greater influence on changes in annual maxima streamflow flood timing.

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Section: Climate Changes Influencing Flood Timing Across Australiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Changes in Antecedent Soil Moisture Modulate Flood Seasonality in a Changing Climate

Wasko

Peel

2020

Water Resources Research

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“…The result of the semi-partial correlation analysis highlights that changes in PR are a much more dominant driver of the acceleration of the terrestrial water cycle than changes in ET, even though changes in the two variables are strongly correlated in many sites worldwide for obvious mass conservation reasons. The importance of PR variability in the study of the terrestrial water cycle is undoubtable (Giorgi et al, 2019;Mathew & Kumar, 2019;Trenberth et al, 2003;Trenberth & Zhang, 2018), but here we demonstrate that it is the main driver of the projected acceleration of the hydrological cycle, much more important than changes in ET associated with higher temperatures. Please note, though, that at the global scale changes in PR are a result of the overall global warming and thus indirectly related to temperature (e.g., Allan et al, 2014;Schneider et al, 2010).…”

Section: Drivers Of Variation In Rt Changesmentioning

confidence: 60%

Evidence and Controls of the Acceleration of the Hydrological Cycle Over Land

Wang

Meili

Fatichi

2023

Water Resources Research

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Investigating modifications in the hydrological cycle is essential to understand the impacts of climate change on ecosystems. This study assesses the change in the velocity of the water cycle over land at the global scale, whereas previous studies have mostly focused on changes in the atmospheric water cycle. The hydrological acceleration is quantified by a decrease in average residence time (RT) of water in the first meter of soil. The soil water RT is shown to be sensitive to the soil texture and hydroclimatic variables seasonality. Despite substantial local variability, most of the RTs are in the range of 50‐300 days. The global mean soil water RT declined at a rate of ‐2.30 days decade‐1 and ‐0.36 days decade‐1 (‐1.6 to 1.0 days decade‐1 the range of nine models) from 2001 to 2020 as measured by reanalysis and CMIP6 simulations for the historical scenario, respectively, which corresponds to ‐6.8 days °C‐1 and ‐1.1 days °C‐1 when expressed per degree of global warming over land. This acceleration is projected to continue at a rate of ‐1.35 days decade‐1 (‐3.4 to 0.0 days decade‐1 the range of nine models) or ‐2.2 days °C‐1 during the period 2015‐2100 under the most extreme emission scenario: SSP 585. Changes in precipitation dominantly drive the acceleration of the terrestrial water cycle compared to changes in evapotranspiration. Rising temperatures and increasing carbon dioxide have opposite effects on the speed of the terrestrial water cycle with compensatory roles keeping RT relatively unchanged in the absence of PR trends.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

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“…The tropical static stability increases may weaken the MJO's ability to influence extreme events in future warmer climate by weakening wind teleconnections (Bui & Maloney, 2018). Furthermore, the poleward migration of the Hadley Circulation will change the precipitation patterns in the tropics (Mathew & Kumar, 2019; Studholme & Gulev, 2018) and may weaken tropical teleconnections.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Potential Precipitation Predictability Decreases Under Future Warming

Zhang

Chen

et al. 2020

Geophysical Research Letters

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Precipitation predictability is likely to decrease with water cycle intensification under global warming, yet how much it will change spatiotemporally is unclear. We quantify the precipitation predictability changes under future warming using model simulations from Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5. The global-averaged potential precipitation predictability (PPP) is likely to decrease 0.3% per 1°C increase of global sea surface temperature (SST), with a decrease of 0.8% and 0.1% in tropical and extratropical regions, respectively, under future warming scenarios. The PPP changes are divergent among different models with considerable uncertainty. The estimated declining PPP is closely related to the increase of SST and the decrease of potential SST predictability based on a statistical regression analysis. These results unravel the changing pattern of precipitation predictability under future warming. Plain Language Summary Precipitation prediction for several weeks or months in advance provides opportunities for the preparation of extreme weather events such as droughts and floods. The predictable ability of precipitation determines how long it can be forecasted. We found that precipitation is becoming more difficult to predict when the global sea surface temperature (SST) continues to increase in the future, although different models show divergent results. The decreasing precipitation predictable ability is well explained by the increasing SST and the decreasing predictable ability of SST. Although extreme precipitation events may increase in a warmer world in the context of the enhanced SST variability and other changes such as sulfate aerosols and land use, precipitation is probably less predictable as a result of lower predictable ability of SST.

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Characterization of the long-term changes in moisture, clouds and precipitation in the ascending and descending branches of the Hadley Circulation

Cited by 16 publications

References 54 publications

Changes in Antecedent Soil Moisture Modulate Flood Seasonality in a Changing Climate

Changes in Antecedent Soil Moisture Modulate Flood Seasonality in a Changing Climate

Evidence and Controls of the Acceleration of the Hydrological Cycle Over Land

Potential Precipitation Predictability Decreases Under Future Warming

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