Abstract
Extreme precipitation events, which have intensified with global warming, will have a pernicious influence on society. It would be desirable to understand how they will evolve in the future as global warming becomes more serious with time. Thus, the primary objective of this study is to provide a comprehensive understanding of the changing characteristics of the precipitation extremes in the 21st century over Shaanxi Province, a climate-sensitive and environmentally fragile area located in the east of northwestern China, based on a consecutive simulation of the 21st century conducted by the regional climate model RegCM4 forced by the global climate model HadGEM2-ES at high resolution under middle emission scenario of the Representative Concentration Pathway 4.5 (RCP4.5). Basic validation of the model performance was carried out, and six extreme precipitation indices (EPIs) were used to assess the intensity and frequency of the extreme precipitation events over Shaanxi Province. The results show that RegCM4 reproduces the observed characteristics of extreme precipitation events over Shaanxi Province well. Overall for the domain, the EPIs excluding consecutive dry days (CDD) have a growing tendency during 1980–2098 although they exhibit spatial variability over Shaanxi Province. Some areas in the arid northern Shaanxi may have more heavy rainfalls by the middle of the 21st century but less wet extreme events by the end of the 21st century. And the humid central and southern regions would suffer more precipitation-related natural hazards in the future.
Highlights
Climate change is becoming an increasingly imminent threat to the world
Due to a large increase in atmospheric moisture, the hydrological cycle will be more active in a warmer climate, which would lead to increases in both the frequency and intensity of climate extremes [1,2,3,4]. e Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports pointed out that the frequency and intensity of precipitation extremes would increase significantly in the future [5, 6]
By using the gridded observational data provided by the National Meteorological Information Center (NMIC) of China and the results from the high-resolution climate change simulation and projection over China conducted by RegCM4, the future precipitation extremes over Shaanxi Province were investigated. e extreme precipitation indices used to quantify the precipitation extremes include Rx1day, Rx5day, R95p, R10 mm, consecutive dry days (CDD), and SDII. e period 1986–2005 serves as a reference for future changes
Summary
Climate change is becoming an increasingly imminent threat to the world. Due to a large increase in atmospheric moisture, the hydrological cycle will be more active in a warmer climate, which would lead to increases in both the frequency and intensity of climate extremes [1,2,3,4]. e Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports pointed out that the frequency and intensity of precipitation extremes would increase significantly in the future [5, 6]. Scientific projections of future changes in the precipitation extremes over China have been carried out by simulations from global climate models (GCMs) or regional climate models (RCMs) under different emission scenarios, and the studies implied that there would be an overall increasing trend in extreme precipitation events over most areas of China in the 21st century, in the southeast coastal zone and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and North China [28,29,30,31,32]. According to the daily precipitation observed data over the area, researchers found that the regional climate of Shaanxi Province tended to get drier in the past decades, whereas the changing trend in extreme precipitation events had apparent regional differences. Using data from observation and simulation and projection conducted by RegCM4 at high resolution, one of the regional climate models that is capable of describing climate feedback mechanisms acting at the regional scale and providing better representations of regional climate variation [35]. is study on variability of the precipitation extremes would provide insights into climate change in the future and be a scientific basis for the development of risk-reduction measures and early warning systems
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