Abstract
Regional projections of extreme precipitation intensity (EPI) are strongly influenced by changes of “extreme ascent”, i.e. ascending air during periods of extreme precipitation. Earlier studies have suggested that long-term changes in eddy length scale and vertical stability are key factors influencing extreme ascent projections, but these mechanisms have yet to be confirmed with controlled model experiments. In this study, we perform such controlled experiments using a cloud-resolving model (CRM). The selected CRM domains are three locations over the subtropical Atlantic Ocean where global climate models consistently project weakening of extreme ascent with accordingly decreased EPI. At each study location, four to ten pairs of 20-year-maximum precipitation events are simulated with the CRM, with each pair consisting of an event during the historical period (1981–2000) and an event during the future period (2081–2100). Large-scale forcings for these events are derived from members of an initial condition ensemble of the Canadian Earth System Model version 2 (CanESM2). These experiments reveal that, in all three study locations, weakening of differential cyclonic vorticity advection (dCVA) is a key driver of projected decreases in extreme ascent and EPI. Possible mechanisms responsible for weakening dCVA are discussed. Although there is evidence that EPI in the CRM has different sensitivity to large-scale forcings than CanESM2, the role of dCVA changes may nonetheless be important to consider for EPI changes in the real world.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data Availability Statement
Output from the CanESM2 Large Ensemble can be obtained from https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/aa7b6823-fd1e-49ff-a6fb-68076a4a477c.
References
Alexander LV, Zhang X, Peterson TC, Caesar J, Gleason B, Klein Tank AMG, Haylock M, Collins D, Trewin B, Rahimzadeh F, Tagipour A, Rupa Kumar K, Revadekar J, Griffiths G, Vincent L, Stephenson DB, Burn J, Aguilar E, Brunet M, Taylor M, New M, Zhai P, Rusticucci M, Vazquez-Aguirre JL (2006) Global observed changes in daily climate extremes of temperature and precipitation. J Geophys Res Atmos. https://doi.org/10.1029/2005JD006290
Arora VK, Scinocca JF, Boer GJ, Christian JR, Denman KL, Flato GM, Kharin VV, Lee WG, Merryfield WJ (2011) Carbon emission limits required to satisfy future representative concentration pathways of greenhouse gases. Geophys Res Lett 38:5. https://doi.org/10.1029/2010GL046270
Bao J, Sherwood SC, Colin M, Dixit V (2017) The robust relationship between extreme precipitation and convective organization in idealized numerical modeling simulations. J Adv Model Earth Syst 9(6):2291–2303. https://doi.org/10.1002/2017MS001125
Barnes EA, Hartmann DL (2012) The global distribution of atmospheric eddy length scales. J Clim 25(9):3409–3416. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00331.1
Brönnimann S, Rajczak J, Fischer EM, Raible CC, Rohrer M, Schär C (2018) Changing seasonality of moderate and extreme precipitation events in the Alps. Nat Hazards Earth Syst Sci 18(7):2047–2056. https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-18-2047-2018
Coppola E, Sobolowski S, Pichelli E, Raffaele F, Ahrens B, Anders I, Ban N, Bastin S, Belda M, Belusic D, Caldas-Alvarez A, Cardoso RM, Davolio S, Dobler A, Fernandez J, Fita L, Fumiere Q, Giorgi F, Goergen K, Güttler I, Halenka T, Heinzeller D, Hodnebrog Ø, Jacob D, Kartsios S, Katragkou E, Kendon E, Khodayar S, Kunstmann H, Knist S, Lavín-Gullón A, Lind P, Lorenz T, Maraun D, Marelle L, van Meijgaard E, Milovac J, Myhre G, Panitz HJ, Piazza M, Raffa M, Raub T, Rockel B, Schär C, Sieck K, Soares PMM, Somot S, Srnec L, Stocchi P, Tölle MH, Truhetz H, Vautard R, de Vries H, Warrach-Sagi K (2020) A first-of-its-kind multi-model convection permitting ensemble for investigating convective phenomena over Europe and the Mediterranean. Clim Dyn 55:3–34. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-018-4521-8
Dai P, Nie J (2020) A global quasigeostrophic diagnosis of extratropical extreme precipitation. J Clim 33(22):9629–9642. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-20-0146.1
de Vries AJ (2021) A global climatological perspective on the importance of Rossby wave breaking and intense moisture transport for extreme precipitation events. Weather Clim Dyn 2(1):129–161. https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-2-129-2021
de Vries AJ, Ouwersloot HG, Feldstein SB, Riemer M, El Kenawy AM, McCabe MF, Lelieveld J (2018) Identification of tropical-extratropical interactions and extreme precipitation events in the Middle East based on potential vorticity and moisture transport. J Geophys Res Atmos 123(2):861–881. https://doi.org/10.1002/2017JD027587
Dwyer JG, O’Gorman PA (2017) Changing duration and spatial extent of midlatitude precipitation extremes across different climates. Geophys Res Lett 44(11):5863–5871. https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL072855
Hegdahl TJ, Engeland K, Muller M, Sillmann J (2020) An event-based approach to explore selected present and future atmospheric river-induced floods in western Norway. J Hydrometeorol 21:2003–2021. https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM-D-19-0071.1
Holton JR, Hakim GJ (2012) An introduction to dynamic meteorology, 5th edn. Elsevier, New York
Huffman GJ, Adler RF, Arkin P, Chang A, Ferraro R, Gruber A, Janowiak J, McNab A, Rudolf B, Schneider U (1997) The global precipitation climatology project GPCP combined precipitation dataset. Bull Am Meteorol Soc 78(1):5–20. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0477(1997)078<0005:TGPCPG>2.0.CO;2
Johanson CM, Fu Q (2009) Hadley cell widening: model simulations versus observations. J Clim 22:2713–2725. https://doi.org/10.1175/2008JCLI2620.1
Khairoutdinov MF, Randall DA (2003) Cloud resolving modeling of the ARM summer 1997 IOP: model formulation, results, uncertainties, and sensitivities. J Atmos Sci 60(4):607–625. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0469(2003)060<0607:CRMOTA>2.0.CO;2
Kidston J, Dean SM, Renwick JA, Vallis GK (2010) A robust increase in the eddy length scale in the simulation of future climates. Geophys Res Lett 37:3. https://doi.org/10.1029/2009GL041615
Kronstadt KA, Pervaze AS, Vaughn B (2011) Flooding in Pakistan: overview and issues for congress. Environmental stress in Pakistan and U.S. interests. Internet. https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R40926.html
Li Z, O’Gorman PA (2020) Response of vertical velocities in extratropical precipitation extremes to climate change. J Clim 33(16):7125–7139. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-19-0766.1
Liu C, Ikeda K, Rasmussen R, Barlage M, Newman AJ, Prein AF, Chen F, Chen L, Clark M, Dai A, Dudhia J, Eidhammer T, Gochis D, Gutmann E, Kurkute S, Li Y, Thompson G, Yates D (2017) Continental-scale convection-permitting modeling of the current and future climate of North America. Clim Dyn 49:71–95. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-016-3327-9
Lu J, Chen G, Frierson DMW (2008) Response of the zonal mean atmospheric circulation to El Niño versus global warming. J Clim 21:5835–5851. https://doi.org/10.1175/2008JCLI2200.1
Ma T, Wu G, Liu Y, Jiang Z, Yu J (2019) Impact of surface potential vorticity density forcing over the Tibetan Plateau on the South China extreme precipitation in (2008) Part I: Data analysis. J Meteorol Res 33(3):400–415
Marelle L, Myhre G, Hodnebrog Ø, Sillmann J, Samset BH (2018) The changing seasonality of extreme daily precipitation. Geophys Res Lett 45:20. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL079567
Masson-Delmotte V, Zhai P, Pörtner HO, Roberts D, Skea J, Shukla PR, Pirani A, Moufouma-Okia W, Péan C, Pidcock R, et al (2018) IPCC, 2018: summary for policymakers. In: Global warming of \(1.5^\circ {C}\). an IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of \(1.5^\circ {C}\) above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways,in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development,and efforts to eradicate poverty. https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/spm/
Milrad SM, Lombardo K, Atallah EH, Gyakum JR (2017) Numerical simulations of the 2013 Alberta flood: dynamics, thermodynamics, and the role of orography. Mon Weather Rev 145(8):3049–3072. https://doi.org/10.1175/MWR-D-16-0336.1
Nie J, Sobel AH (2016) Modeling the interaction between quasigeostrophic vertical motion and convection in a single column. J Atmos Sci 73(3):1101–1117. https://doi.org/10.1175/JAS-D-15-0205.1
Nie J, Shaevitz DA, Sobel AH (2016) Forcings and feedbacks on convection in the 2010 Pakistan flood: modeling extreme precipitation with interactive large-scale ascent. J Adv Model Earth Syst 8(3):1055–1072. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016MS000663
Nie J, Sobel AH, Shaevitz DA, Wang S (2018) Dynamic amplification of extreme precipitation sensitivity. Proc Natl Acad Sci 115(38):9467–9472. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1800357115
Nie J, Dai P, Sobel AH (2020) Dry and moist dynamics shape regional patterns of extreme precipitation sensitivity. Proc Natl Acad Sci 117(16):8757–8763. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1913584117
Norris J, Chen G, Li C (2020) Dynamic amplification of subtropical extreme precipitation in a warming climate. Geophys Res Lett 47(14):e2020GL087. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL087200
O’Gorman PA, Schneider T (2009) The physical basis for increases in precipitation extremes in simulations of 21st-century climate change. Proc Natl Acad Sci 106(35):14773–14777. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0907610106
O’Gorman PA, Schneider T (2009) Scaling of precipitation extremes over a wide range of climates simulated with an idealized GCM. J Clim 22(21):5676–5685. https://doi.org/10.1175/2009JCLI2701.1
Pendergrass AG, Lehner F, Sanderson BM, Xu Y (2015) Does extreme precipitation intensity depend on the emissions scenario? Geophys Res Lett 42(20):8767–8774. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015GL065854
Pendergrass AG, Reed KA, Medeiros B (2016) The link between extreme precipitation and convective organization in a warming climate: global radiative-convective equilibrium simulations. Geophys Res Lett 43(21):11445–11452. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL071285
Pfahl S, O’Gorman PA, Fischer EM (2017) Understanding the regional pattern of projected future changes in extreme precipitation. Nat Clim Change 7(6):423–427. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3287
Pichelli E, Coppola E, Sobolowski S, Ban N, Giorgi F, Stocchi P, Alias A, Belušić D, Berthou S, Caillaud C, Cardoso RM, Chan S, Christensen OB, Dobler A, de Vries H, Goergen K, Kendon EJ, Keuler K, Lenderink G, Lorenz T, Mishra AN, Panitz HJ, Schär C, Soares PMM, Truhetz H, Vergara-Temprado J (2021) The first multi-model ensemble of regional climate simulations at kilometer-scale resolution part 2: historical and future simulations of precipitation. Clim Dyn 56:3581–3602. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-021-05657-4
Pierce DW, Barnett TP, Santer BD, Gleckler PJ (2009) Selecting global climate models for regional climate change studies. Proc Natl Acad Sci 106(21):8441–8446. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0900094106
Prein AF, Rasmussen RM, Ikeda K, Liu C, Clark MP, Holland GJ (2016) The future intensification of hourly precipitation extremes. Nat Clim Change 7:48. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3168
Rajczak J, Pall P, Schär C (2013) Projections of extreme precipitation events in regional climate simulations for Europe and the Alpine Region. J Geophys Res Atmos 118(9):3610–3626. https://doi.org/10.1002/jgrd.50297
Randall D, Wood R, Bony S, Colman R, Fichefet T, Fyfe J, Kattsov V, Pitman A, Shukla J, Srinivasan J, Stouffer R, Sumi A, Taylor K (2007) Climate change 2007: the physical science basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Internet. http://web.crc.losrios.edu/~larsenl/ExtraMaterials/IPCC4/ar4-wg1-chapter8.pdf
Riahi K, Rao S, Krey V, Cho C, Chirkov V, Fischer G, Kindermann G, Nakicenovic N, Rafaj P (2011) RCP 85–a scenario of comparatively high greenhouse gas emissions. Clim Change 109(1–2):33–57. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0149-y
Seidel DJ, Fu Q, Randel WJ, Reichler TJ (2008) Widening of the tropical belt in a changing climate. Nat Geosci 1:21–24. https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo.2007.38
Sobel AH, Bretherton CS (2000) Modeling tropical precipitation in a single column. J Clim 13:4378–4392. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0442(2000)013<4378:MTPIAS>2.0.CO;2
Tandon NF, Gerber EP, Sobel AH, Polvani LM (2013) Understanding Hadley Cell expansion versus contraction: insights from simplified models and implications for recent observations. J Clim 26:4304–4321. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00598.1
Tandon NF, Nie J, Zhang X (2018) Strong influence of eddy length on boreal summertime extreme precipitation projections. Geophys Res Lett 45(19):10665–10672. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL079327
Tandon NF, Zhang X, Sobel AH (2018) Understanding the dynamics of future changes in extreme precipitation intensity. Geophys Res Lett 45(6):2870–2878. https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL076361
Trenberth KE (1978) On the interpretation of the diagnostic quasi-geostrophic omega equation. Mon Weather Rev 106(1):131–137
Trenberth KE (1999) Atmospheric moisture recycling: role of advection and local evaporation. J Clim 12(5):1368–1381. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0442(1999)012<1368:AMRROA>2.0.CO;2
Trenberth KE, Fasullo JT, Shepherd TG (2015) Attribution of climate extreme events. Nat Clim Change 5(8):725–730. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2657
Vaqar A, Khan MAA, Shakeel R, Zuhair M, Amir P (2011) National economic and environmental development study: the case of Pakistan. MPRA Paper 30942, University Library of Munich, Germany. https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/30942.html
Westra S, Alexander LV, Zwiers FW (2013) Global increasing trends in annual maximum daily precipitation. J Clim 26(11):3904–3918. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00502.1
WMO (2018) Guidelines on the defintion and monitoring of extreme weather and climate events. Task team on the definition of extreme weather and climate events. https://doi.org/10.1109/CSCI.2015.171
Zheng F, Westra S, Leonard M (2015) Opposing local precipitation extremes. Nat Clim Change 5(5):389–390. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2579
Acknowledgements
We acknowledge Megan Kirchmeier-Young in her role as scientific authority for the ECCC contract. We thank Ji Nie for helpful discussions and assistance with the CQG framework, and we thank Marat Khairoutdinov for further assistance with compiling SAM. Devanarayana Rao provided generous assistance with MATLAB coding. Gary Klaassen, Yongsheng Chen and Rashid Bashir provided valuable feedback on an earlier version of this manuscript. Two anonymous reviewers provided constructive feedback on the submitted manuscript. Guilong Li and Yanjun Jiao at ECCC generously assisted with obtaining CanESM2 output. The CRM simulations presented in this study were performed on Compute Canada’s graham and cedar high-performance computing clusters.
Funding
Support for this research was provided by Contract 300697135 from Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) and a Discovery Grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
Authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest regarding this paper.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Mpanza, M.A.T., Tandon, N.F. Further probing the mechanisms driving projected decreases of extreme precipitation intensity over the subtropical Atlantic. Clim Dyn 59, 3317–3341 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-022-06268-3
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-022-06268-3