Regionally high risk increase for precipitation extreme events under global warming

Abstract

Daily precipitation extremes are projected to intensify with increasing moisture under global warming following the Clausius-Clapeyron (CC) relationship at about $$ 7\% /^\circ {\text{C}} $$ 7 % / ∘ C . However, this increase is not spatially homogeneous. Projections in individual models exhibit regions with substantially larger increases than expected from the CC scaling. Here, we leverage theory and observations of the form of the precipitation probability distribution to substantially improve intermodel agreement in the medium to high precipitation intensity regime, and to interpret projected changes in frequency in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6. Besides particular regions where models consistently display super-CC behavior, we find substantial occurrence of super-CC behavior within a given latitude band when the multi-model average does not require that the models agree point-wise on location within that band. About 13% of the globe and almost 25% of the tropics (30% for tropical land) display increases exceeding 2CC. Over 40% of tropical land points exceed 1.5CC. Risk-ratio analysis shows that even small increases above CC scaling can have disproportionately large effects in the frequency of the most extreme events. Risk due to regional enhancement of precipitation scale increase by dynamical effects must thus be included in vulnerability assessment even if locations are imprecise.

Observed changes in hydroclimate attributed to human forcing

“…Regional and local scale hydroclimate changes in a warming climate might be enhanced by local feedback processes, including changes in moisture transport and mass convergence (Fig 1 ) and other land-atmosphere coupling controls, such as soil moisture [51,52], land-use changes, and water management [34]. Modeling studies indicate that regional to local scale increases in precipitation are closer to Clausius-Clapeyron [9] and might be higher (>10% K -1 ) in certain regions, especially considering extreme events alone [53]. A higher convective available potential energy (CAPE) has been associated with increased extreme precipitation in some regions over land [54].…”

Impacts of Climate Change on Extreme Climate Indices in Türkiye Driven by High-Resolution Downscaled CMIP6 Climate Models

“…On a global scale, previous studies revealed that the intensity and frequency of extreme events have increased, and this increase is expected to continue [10,[12][13][14]. However, extreme precipitation events are not spatially consistent so exhibit robust spatial variability while temperature extremes generally exhibit consistent behavior, especially for the frequency, with the global-scale changes [15][16][17]. Therefore, different regional scales reveal different change patterns in extreme climate events, and these variations by region lead to impacts that vary spatiotemporally [6,10,18].…”

The impact of tropical sea surface temperature on extreme precipitation in Pakistan during the summer of 2022

“…The vertical water vapor change mainly depends on the local water vapor gradient, which is related to the evaporation process from the surface. Therefore, the anomalous moisture vertical gradient convected by climatological vertical advection reveals that this positive precipitation anomaly is more closely related to the water vapor change associated with global warming and increased aerosol emissions(Zhang et al 2020, Allan and Douville 2023, Kotz et al 2023, Martinez and Neelin 2023…”