Abstract
AbstractOver subhourly time scales, extreme precipitation events play a critical role for many sectors impacted by climate change; however, it is unclear how these events will evolve in a warmer climate. Here, we perform climate simulations using a regional climate model over the greater Alpine region at kilometer‐scale resolution. By analyzing precipitation intensities with short accumulation times, we show that the model can capture the observed percentiles of extreme subhourly precipitation measured at surface rain‐gauge stations. Then, by simulating the future climate, we show that the associated increases in intensity of subhourly extreme precipitation events grow with the intensity of the events but tends asymptotically toward 6.5% per degree warming. This suggests that the most extreme intensities scale with the Clausius‐Clapeyron scaling rate that represents the ability of a warmer atmosphere to hold more water vapor. It should be expected that these changes will lead to increased risks of flash flooding, land‐slides, and erosion over Europe in a warmer climate.
Highlights
Over sub-hourly time scales, extreme precipitation events are of paramount importance for a range of extreme events
Over subhourly time scales, extreme precipitation events play a critical role for many sectors impacted by climate change; it is unclear how these events will evolve in a warmer climate
By using long-term station data of precipitation amounts every 10 min, we have shown that our kilometer-scale model simulations are effectively able to simulate the percentiles of extreme precipitation intensities at sub-hourly and hourly time scales
Summary
Over sub-hourly time scales, extreme precipitation events are of paramount importance for a range of extreme events. They are the key driver of flash flooding (Archer & Fowler, 2018; Drobinski et al, 2014), strongly affect urban and mountain hydrology (Mastrotheodoros et al, 2020), play a key role for erosion (Willett, 1999), may trigger land-slide and mud-flow events (Stoffel & Huggel, 2012), and represent a critical safety hazard for human infrastructure, bridges and dams. Global climate models predict an increase in mean precipitation by about 2%–3% per degree warming (Held & Soden, 2006), which can be explained by global energy constraints (Allen & Ingram, 2002; Trenberth et al, 2009). Studies show that extreme precipitation increases even in some regions where mean amounts decrease (e.g., Alpert et al, 2002)
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