PPDIST, global 0.1° daily and 3-hourly precipitation probability distribution climatologies for 1979–2018

Beck, Hylke E.; Westra, Seth; Tan, Jackson; Pappenberger, Florian; Huffman, George J.; McVicar, Tim R.; Gründemann, Gaby; Vergopolan, Noemi; Fowler, Hayley J.; Lewis, Elizabeth; Verbist, Koen; Wood, Eric F.

doi:10.1038/s41597-020-00631-x

Cited by 14 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 109 publications

(167 reference statements)

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“…Although the analysis of seasonality is fully consistent between CHIRPS and ERA5, the results of the correlation analysis between floods, annual maximum rainfall and soil moisture time series reveals some differences between the two rainfall products (Figure S5). ERA5 can overestimate precipitation occurrence and underestimate extremes (Beck et al, 2020), while CHIRPS is sensitive to changes in the rain gauge station network over time, leading to time‐varying systematic errors (Harrison et al., 2019). Additional issues are related to the use of gridded precipitation products with averaging effects resulting in the underestimation of extremes (Ensor & Robeson, 2008).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of the Drivers Responsible for Flooding in Africa

Tramblay

Villarini

Khalki

et al. 2021

Water Resources Research

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Africa is severely affected by floods, with an increasing vulnerability to these events in the most recent decades. Our improved preparation against and response to this hazard would benefit from an enhanced understanding of the physical processes at play. Here, a database of 399 African stream gauges is used to analyze the seasonality of observed annual maximum flood, precipitation and soil moisture between 1981 and 2018. The database includes a total of 11,302 flood events, covering most African regions. The analysis is based on directional statistics to compare the annual maximum river flood with annual maximum rainfall and soil moisture. The results show that the annual maximum flood in most areas is more strongly linked to the annual peak of soil moisture than of annual maximum precipitation. In addition, the interannual variability of flood magnitudes is better explained by the variability of annual maximum soil moisture than by the variability in the annual maximum precipitation. These results have important implications for flood forecasting and the analysis of the long‐term evolution of these hydrological hazards in relation with their drivers.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of the Drivers Responsible for Flooding in Africa

Tramblay

Villarini

Khalki

et al. 2021

Water Resources Research

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“…This quality-controlled data has been used to develop UK-wide gridded 1 km resolution hourly precipitation products [22], blended gauge-radar-satellite datasets [23] and to examine the ability of hourly gauge data to capture hourly rainfall extremes [24]. The GSDR has also been used, together with reanalyses and remotely sensed products, to produce global 0.1° daily and 3-hourly precipitation probability distribution climatologies for 1979–2018 [25]. These are added to existing merged products as a key resource for the community to validate climate model outputs [13] and provide a significant platform to guide future model development.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

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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“…This threshold was also chosen based on results from published literature indicating 40mm represents an ~10 year return level for 3hr rainfall across central Europe and a >10 year return level in northern Europe. Beck et al (2020) showed a 15-year return-period intensity for 3-hour rainfall of ~16mm in northern Europe and ~30-40mm in southern and central Europe, while Poschlod et al (2021) found 10-yr return levels for 3hr rainfall of ~35-45mm in central Europe and ~20-30mm in the UK and Scandinavia, using a high-resolution single- model large ensemble climate model. Therefore, this threshold represents potentially impactful events across the region under investigation.…”

Section: Rainfall Datamentioning

confidence: 98%

Atmospheric patterns associated with sub-daily rainfall extremes in western Europe

Whitford,

Blenkinsop,

Fowler

2023

Preprint

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Large-scale atmospheric conditions are a significant driver of rainfall extremes. However, little attention so far has been devoted to understanding how large-scale circulation patterns influence sub-daily rainfall extremes. Using a gauge-based sub-daily rainfall dataset, we investigate the relationship between large-scale circulation and 3-hour extremes for western Europe. A set of 30 weather patterns (WPs) developed by the UK Met Office and reanalysis data of geopotential height at 500hPa (z500) are used to represent large-scale atmospheric conditions. Strong associations with 3hr extremes are found for a small number of WPs: over 50% of 3hr rainfall extremes across Western Europe occur with just 5 WPs. Composites of z500 reveal the WPs resulting in southerly or south-westerly flow along the leading edge of a trough, accompanied by a ridge to the east or northeast, are most favourable for sub-daily rainfall extremes, with a statistically-significant difference between the atmospheric conditions on WP + sub-daily rainfall extreme event days compared to WP non-event days. Given that large-scale circulations are predictable much further in advance than individual extreme rainfall events, these identified relationships could therefore have important implications for forecasting, aiding in the early identification of periods with increased risk of short-duration rainfall extremes.

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PPDIST, global 0.1° daily and 3-hourly precipitation probability distribution climatologies for 1979–2018

Cited by 14 publications

References 109 publications

Evaluation of the Drivers Responsible for Flooding in Africa

Evaluation of the Drivers Responsible for Flooding in Africa

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

Atmospheric patterns associated with sub-daily rainfall extremes in western Europe

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