Abstract
The intensity of the heaviest extreme precipitation events is known to increase with global warming. How often such events occur in a warmer world is however less well established, and the combined effect of changes in frequency and intensity on the total amount of rain falling as extreme precipitation is much less explored, in spite of potentially large societal impacts. Here, we employ observations and climate model simulations to document strong increases in the frequencies of extreme precipitation events occurring on decadal timescales. Based on observations we find that the total precipitation from these intense events almost doubles per degree of warming, mainly due to changes in frequency, while the intensity changes are relatively weak, in accordance to previous studies. This shift towards stronger total precipitation from extreme events is seen in observations and climate models, and increases with the strength – and hence the rareness – of the event. Based on these results, we project that if historical trends continue, the most intense precipitation events observed today are likely to almost double in occurrence for each degree of further global warming. Changes to extreme precipitation of this magnitude are dramatically stronger than the more widely communicated changes to global mean precipitation.
Highlights
It is well established that the intensity of extreme precipitation increases more strongly with global mean surface temperature than mean precipitation[1,2,3,4,5], as the latter, on a global scale, is limited by energy constraints[6,7,8,9]
To illustrate how changes to the total extreme precipitation are affected by both frequency and intensity, Fig. 1a shows a conceptualized probability density function (PDF) of daily precipitation corresponding to a reference surface air temperature, compared to one with a higher surface air temperature
We investigate extreme precipitation events through established indices, such as the amount of daily precipitation above the 99th percentile (R99p)[29], which is equivalent to the total precipitation falling during the 1% heaviest precipitation events
Summary
It is well established that the intensity of extreme precipitation increases more strongly with global mean surface temperature than mean precipitation[1,2,3,4,5], as the latter, on a global scale, is limited by energy constraints[6,7,8,9]. The increase in the frequency of extreme precipitation, i.e. the number of events per unit time with intensity above a given threshold, has generally received much less attention[18,19,20,21].
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