The physical basis for increases in precipitation extremes in simulations of 21st-century climate change
Name
O'Gorman-2009-The physical basis f.pdf
Size
392.53 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
0908063960e289be8c8f75b9426439ab
Author(s)
Schneider, Tapio
O'Gorman, Paul
Date Issued
July 2009
Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Publisher
United States National Academy of Sciences
Citation
O'Gorman, Paul A, and Tapio Schneider. “The physical basis for increases in precipitation extremes in simulations of 21st-century climate change.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106.35 (2009): 14773-14777. © 2009 National Academy of Sciences
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Global warming is expected to lead to a large increase in atmospheric water vapor content and to changes in the hydrological cycle, which include an intensification of precipitation extremes. The intensity of precipitation extremes is widely held to increase proportionately to the increase in atmospheric water vapor content. Here, we show that this is not the case in 21st-century climate change scenarios simulated with climate models. In the tropics, precipitation extremes are not simulated reliably and do not change consistently among climate models; in the extratropics, they consistently increase more slowly than atmospheric water vapor content. We give a physical basis for how precipitation extremes change with climate and show 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. For the tropics, the theory suggests that improving the simulation of upward velocities in climate models is essential for improving predictions of precipitation extremes; for the extratropics, agreement with theory and the consistency among climate models increase confidence in the robustness of predictions of precipitation extremes under climate change.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0907610106
