Open Access
Increased record-breaking precipitation events under global warming
Jascha Lehmann,Jascha Lehmann,Dim Coumou,Katja Frieler +3 more
- pp 3758
Abstract:
In the last decade record-breaking rainfall events have occurred in many places around the world causing severe impacts to human society and the environment including agricultural losses and floodings. There is now medium confidence that human-induced greenhouse gases have contributed to changes in heavy precipitation events at the global scale. Here, we present the first analysis of record-breaking daily rainfall events using observational data. We show that over the last three decades the number of record-breaking events has significantly increased in the global mean. Globally, this increase has led to 12 % more record-breaking rainfall events over 1981–2010 compared to those expected in stationary time series. The number of record-breaking rainfall events peaked in 2010 with an estimated 26 % chance that a new rainfall record is due to long-term climate change. This increase in record-breaking rainfall is explained by a statistical model which accounts for the warming of air and associated increasing water holding capacity only. Our results suggest that whilst the number of rainfall record-breaking events can be related to natural multi-decadal variability over the period from 1901 to 1980, observed record-breaking rainfall events significantly increased afterwards consistent with rising temperatures.read more
Citations
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Global increasing trends in annual maximum daily precipitation
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Global climate risk index 2015 : who suffers most From extreme weather events? weather-related loss events in 2013 and 1994 to 2013.
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Attribution of extreme weather and climate-related events
Peter A. Stott,Nikolaos Christidis,Friederike E. L. Otto,Ying Sun,Jean-Paul Vanderlinden,Geert Jan van Oldenborgh,Robert Vautard,Hans von Storch,Peter Walton,Pascal Yiou,Francis W. Zwiers +10 more
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References
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Journal ArticleDOI
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TL;DR: An evaluation of the atmospheric moisture budget reveals coherent large-scale changes since 1980 that are linked to recent dry conditions over southern Europe and the Mediterranean, whereas northern Europe and parts of Scandinavia have generally experienced wetter than normal conditions.
Journal ArticleDOI
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Journal ArticleDOI
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Book Chapter
Observations: Surface and Atmospheric Climate Change
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.