The future intensification of hourly precipitation extremes

Prein, Andreas F.; Rasmussen, Roy; Ikeda, Kyoko; Liu, Changhai; Clark, Martyn P.; Holland, Greg J.

doi:10.1038/nclimate3168

Cited by 710 publications

(634 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…The advantage of the feature based evaluation presented here is that the individual components of the bias can be identified. The low bias shown in Prein et al (2017) is caused by an underestimation of the frequency of MCSs. If maximum hourly precipitation from MCSs is evaluated the model overestimates the intensities by 5 % to 25 %.…”

Section: Mcs Characteristicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…10i, k). Prein et al (2017) showed that the model underestimates hourly extreme precipitation, defined as the 99.95 percentile of dry and wet hours, by up to 30 % in the central US during summer. The advantage of the feature based evaluation presented here is that the individual components of the bias can be identified.…”

Section: Mcs Characteristicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…JJA hourly precipitation extremes, defined as the 99.95 percentile of dry and wet hours, are underestimated by ~ 30 % except along the Gulf and Atlantic coastline (Prein et al 2017). …”

Section: Model Setup and Observational Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

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Simulating North American mesoscale convective systems with a convection-permitting climate model

et al. 2017

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Section: Mcs Characteristicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Mcs Characteristicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Simulating North American mesoscale convective systems with a convection-permitting climate model

et al. 2017

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“…Our initial analyses and a precursory scanning of the pertinent literature (BGC, [49]) demonstrated that the frequency of extreme rainfall and runoff events have been increasing for the last two decades or so. Prein et al [65] simulated changes in local precipitation extremes over the conterminous US and southern Canada by analysing a very high resolution (4 km horizontal grid spacing) current and high-end climate scenario that realistically simulates hourly precipitation extremes. For the eastern slopes of the southern Canadian Rocky Mountains, the authors' model predicts a two to four-fold increase in the exceedance probability of hourly precipitation intensity for the months of June to August.…”

Section: Uncertainties In Dating Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Multi-Faceted Debris-Flood Hazard Assessment for Cougar Creek, Alberta, Canada

et al. 2017

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Abstract:A destructive debris flood occurred between 19 and 21 June 2013 on Cougar Creek, located in Canmore, Alberta. Cougar Creek fan is likely the most densely developed alluvial fan in Canada. While no lives were lost, the event resulted in approximately $40 M of damage and closed both the Trans-Canada Highway (Highway 1) and the Canadian Pacific Railway line for a period of several days. The debris flood triggered a comprehensive hazard assessment which is the focus of this paper. Debris-flood frequencies and magnitudes are determined by combining several quantitative methods including photogrammetry, dendrochronology, radiometric dating, test pit logging, empirical relationships between rainfall volumes and sediment volumes, and landslide dam outburst flood modeling. The data analysis suggests that three distinct process types act in the watershed. The most frequent process is normal or "clearwater" floods. Less frequent but more damaging are debris floods during which excessive amounts of bedload are transported on the fan, typically associated with rapid and extensive bank erosion and channel infilling and widening. The third and most destructive process is interpreted to be landslide dam outbreak floods. This event type is estimated to occur at return periods exceeding 300 years. Using a cumulative magnitude frequency technique, the data for conventional debris floods were plotted up to the 100-300 years return period. A peak-over-threshold approach was used for landslide dam outbreak floods occurring at return periods exceeding 300 years, as not all such events were identified during test trenching. Hydrographs for 6 return period classes were approximated by using the estimated peak discharges and fitting the hydrograph shape to integrate to the debris flood volumes as determined from the frequency-magnitude relationship. The fan volume was calculated and compared with the integrated frequency-magnitude curve to check of the validity of the latter. A reasonable match was accomplished, verifying the overall relationship. The findings from this work were later used as input to a risk assessment seeking to quantify risk to loss of life and economic losses. The risk assessment then formed the basis for design of debris-flood mitigation structures.

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“…Multiple studies have already demonstrated the added value of convection-permitting models (CPMs, Prein et al, 2015) in capturing extreme precipitation (e.g., Chan et al 2013;Chan et al, 2014;Meredith et al, 2015;Chan et al, 2017;Zittis et al, 2017). However, there are only a few future projections that use CPCSs (e.g., Prein et al, 2017;Ban et al, 2015;Kendon et al, 2014). It should be noted that using CPCSs does not necessarily reduce biases.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Convection-permitting regional climate simulations for representing floods in small and medium sized catchments in the Eastern Alps

Reszler¹,

Switanek²,

Truhetz³

2018

Preprint

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Abstract. Small scale floods are a consequence of high precipitation rates in small areas that can occur along frontal activity and convective storms. This situation is expected to become more severe due to a warming climate, when single precipitation events resulting from deep convection become more intense ("Super Clausius-Clapeyron effect"). Regional climate model (RCM) evaluations and inter-comparisons have shown that there is evidence that an increase in regional climate model 10 resolution and in particular, at the convection permitting scale, will lead to a better representation of the spatial and temporal characteristics of heavy precipitation at small and medium scales. In this paper, the benefit of grid size reduction and bias correction in climate models are evaluated in their ability to properly represent flood generation in small and medium sized catchments. The climate models are coupled with a distributed hydrological model. The study area is the Eastern Alps, where small scale storms often occur along with heterogeneous rainfall distributions leading to a very local flash flood 15 generation. The work is carried out in a small multi-model (ensemble) framework using two different RCMs (CCLM and WRF) in different grid sizes. Bias correction is performed by the use of the novel Scaled Distribution Mapping (SDM) method. The results show, that for small catchments (< 200 km²) a resolution of 3 km is essential to accurately simulate the magnitude of flood events. Flood frequency and seasonality are both represented well in all catchments. In the larger catchments resolutions of 12.5 km and 50 km already yield statistically satisfying results, but poor results regarding 20 seasonality. Also, due to the short response times in the small sub-catchments a time step of 1 hour is required. In all setups a bias still exists in precipitation and temperature, which sometimes leads to unrealistic hydrological conditions demonstrating the necessity of bias correction. The results show the added value of reducing grid size and bias correction in climate models that can be used to model flood mechanisms in small and medium sized catchments.

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The future intensification of hourly precipitation extremes

Cited by 710 publications

References 28 publications

Simulating North American mesoscale convective systems with a convection-permitting climate model

Simulating North American mesoscale convective systems with a convection-permitting climate model

A Multi-Faceted Debris-Flood Hazard Assessment for Cougar Creek, Alberta, Canada

Convection-permitting regional climate simulations for representing floods in small and medium sized catchments in the Eastern Alps

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