Journal ArticleDOI
How Often Will It Rain
TLDR
In this article, daily precipitation data from climate change simulations using the latest generation of coupled climate system models are analyzed for potential future changes in precipitation characteristics, which indicates that wet regions may get wetter and dry regions may become drier mostly because of a simultaneous increase (decrease) of precipitation frequency and intensity.Abstract:
Daily precipitation data from climate change simulations using the latest generation of coupled climate system models are analyzed for potential future changes in precipitation characteristics. For the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) B1 (a low projection), A1B (a medium projection), and A2 (a high projection) during the twenty-first century, all the models consistently show a shift toward more intense and extreme precipitation for the globe as a whole and over various regions. For both SRES B1 and A2, most models show decreased daily precipitation frequency and all the models show increased daily precipitation intensity. The multimodel averaged percentage increase in the precipitation intensity (2.0% K 1 ) is larger than the magnitude of the precipitation frequency decrease (0.7% K 1 ). However, the shift in precipitation frequency distribution toward extremes results in large increases in very heavy precipitation events (50 mm day 1 ), so that for very heavy precipitation, the percentage increase in frequency is much larger than the increase in intensity (31.2% versus 2.4%). The climate model projected increases in daily precipitation intensity are, however, smaller than that based on simple thermodynamics (7% K 1 ). Multimodel ensemble means show that precipitation amount increases during the twenty-first century over high latitudes, as well as over currently wet regions in low- and midlatitudes more than other regions. This increase mostly results from a combination of increased frequency and intensity. Over the dry regions in the subtropics, the precipitation amount generally declines because of decreases in both frequency and intensity. This indicates that wet regions may get wetter and dry regions may become drier mostly because of a simultaneous increase (decrease) of precipitation frequency and intensity.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Drought under global warming: a review
TL;DR: Wiley et al. as mentioned in this paper reviewed recent literature on the last millennium, followed by an update on global aridity changes from 1950 to 2008, and presented future aridity is presented based on recent studies and their analysis of model simulations.
Journal ArticleDOI
Changes in precipitation with climate change
TL;DR: There is a direct influence of global warming on precipitation as mentioned in this paper, as the water holding capacity of air increases by about 7% per 1°C warming, which leads to increased water vapor in the atmosphere.
Book Chapter
Chapter 12 - Long-term climate change: Projections, commitments and irreversibility
Matthew Collins,R. Knutti,Julie M. Arblaster,J.-L. Dufresne,T. Fichefet,P. Friedlingstein,Xuejie Gao,William J. Gutowski,T. Johns,Gerhard Krinner,Mxolisi Shongwe,C. Tebaldi,A.J. Weaver,M. F. Wehner +13 more
TL;DR: The authors assesses long-term projections of climate change for the end of the 21st century and beyond, where the forced signal depends on the scenario and is typically larger than the internal variability of the climate system.
Book
River Discharge to the Coastal Ocean: A Global Synthesis
TL;DR: The Global River Database as mentioned in this paper is a collection of river data from North and Central America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania with a focus on flooding and erosion.
Journal ArticleDOI
The physical basis for increases in precipitation extremes in simulations of 21st-century climate change
Paul A. O'Gorman,Tapio Schneider +1 more
TL;DR: A physical basis for how precipitation extremes change with climate is given and it is shown that their changes depend on changes in the moist-adiabatic temperature lapse rate, in the upward velocity, and in the temperature when precipitation extremes occur.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Climate change 2001: the scientific basis
John Theodore Houghton,Y. Ding,David John Griggs,M. Noguer,P. J. van der Linden,X. Dai,K. Maskell,C. A. Johnson +7 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present an overview of the climate system and its dynamics, including observed climate variability and change, the carbon cycle, atmospheric chemistry and greenhouse gases, and their direct and indirect effects.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Changing Character of Precipitation
TL;DR: In this article, precipitation intensity, duration, frequency, and phase are as much of concern as total amounts, as these factors determine the disposition of precipitation once it hits the ground and how much runs off.
Journal ArticleDOI
Constraints on future changes in climate and the hydrologic cycle
Myles R. Allen,William Ingram +1 more
TL;DR: It will be substantially harder to quantify the range of possible changes in the hydrologic cycle than in global-mean temperature, both because the observations are less complete and because the physical constraints are weaker.
Journal ArticleDOI
Secular Trends of Precipitation Amount, Frequency, and Intensity in the United States
Thomas R. Karl,Richard W. Knight +1 more
TL;DR: For example, in the United States, precipitation has increased by about 10% in the last decade as mentioned in this paper, and the increase in precipitation is reflected primarily in heavy and extreme daily precipitation events, and over half of the total increase is due to positive trends in the upper 10 percentiles of the precipitation distribution.
Journal ArticleDOI
Trends in Intense Precipitation in the Climate Record
Pavel Groisman,Richard W. Knight,David R. Easterling,Thomas R. Karl,Gabriele C. Hegerl,Vyacheslav N. Razuvaev +5 more
TL;DR: This article found that both the empirical evidence from the period of instrumental observations and model projections of a greenhouse-enriched atmosphere indicate an increasing probability of intense precipitation events for many extratropical regions including the United States.