Scaling and responses of extreme hourly precipitation in three climate experiments with a convection-permitting model

Scaling and responses of extreme hourly precipitation in three climate experiments with a convection-permitting model

Lenderink, G. (TU Delft Atmospheric Remote Sensing; Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI))
de Vries, Hylke (Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI))
Fowler, Hayley J. (Newcastle University)
Barbero, Renaud (Newcastle University; INRAE)
van Ulft, Bert (Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI))
van Meijgaard, Erik (Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI))

2021

It is widely recognized that future rainfall extremes will intensify. This expectation is tied to the Clausius-Clapeyron (CC) relation, stating that the maximum water vapour content in the atmosphere increases by 6-7% per degree warming. Scaling rates for the dependency of hourly precipitation extremes on near-surface (dew point) temperature derived from day-to-day variability have been found to exceed this relation (super-CC). However, both the applicability of this approach in a long-term climate change context, and the physical realism of super-CC rates have been questioned. Here, we analyse three different climate change experiments with a convection-permitting model over Western Europe: simple uniform-warming, 11-year pseudo-global warming and 11-year global climate model driven. The uniform-warming experiment results in consistent increases to the intensity of hourly rainfall extremes of approximately 11% per degree for moderate to high extremes. The other two, more realistic, experiments show smaller increases-usually at or below the CC rate-for moderate extremes, mostly resulting from significant decreases to rainfall occurrence. However, changes to the most extreme events are broadly consistent with 1.5-2 times the CC rate (10-14% per degree), as predicted from the present-day scaling rate for the highest percentiles. This result has important implications for climate adaptation. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Intensification of short-duration rainfall extremes and implications for flash flood risks'.

climate change
hourly precipitation extremes
precipitation scaling

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:6c7d533b-634b-4de2-ad32-8c414132de95

https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2019.0544

1471-2962

Royal Society of London. Philosophical Transactions A. Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences (online), 379 (2195), 1-18

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2021 G. Lenderink, Hylke de Vries, Hayley J. Fowler, Renaud Barbero, Bert van Ulft, Erik van Meijgaard