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The change of Southern Hemisphere extratropical cyclone precipitation characteristics in SSP5-8.5 scenario in CMIP6 models

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Abstract

Extratropical cyclone (EC) is the main source of precipitation at midlatitudes, but its precipitation characteristics change with warming still remains uncertain. Here, using 17 CMIP6 models, ECs in DJF in the Southern Hemisphere are tracked and recorded with concomitant sea level pressure and surface temperatures. EC total precipitation change with warming is decomposed into the contribution from EC number, life duration and precipitation intensity. It is found that decreasing EC total precipitation is strongly related to decreased EC number, with life duration contributing about 1/6 that of EC number change. Increasing EC precipitation intensity offsets the decrease due to EC number. To better quantify EC precipitation intensity change with warming, we employ temperature experienced by ECs instead of regional averaged temperature. A higher precipitation increasing rate per degree of warming (6.05%/K) than previous studies was noted because ECs tend to shift poleward with warming. Furthermore, the noted rate is mainly related to the increase of near-surface temperature (62%), followed by increased EC intensity (23%).

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Data availability

CMIP6 data is available at https://esgf-node.llnl.gov/search/cmip6/, GPCP data is available at http://gpcp.umd.edu/, ERA-Interim data is available at https://www.ecmwf.int/.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the modeling centers for carrying out CMIP6 simulations used here. The data used for this study are publicly available from the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) (esgf-node.llnl.gov/search/cmip6). This work was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Grant no. XDA19070501 and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41921005, 42130603).

Funding

This work was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Grant no. XDA19070501 and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41921005, 42130603).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System Modeling, Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Dongze Xu & Yanluan Lin

  2. Alpine Paleoecology and Human Adaption Group (ALPHA), State Key Laboratory of Tibetan Plateau Earth System, Resources and Environment (TPESRE), Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Dianbin Cao

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DX and YL wrote the main manuscript text and prepared all figures. DC contributed to the EC tracking algorithm. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Yanluan Lin.

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Xu, D., Cao, D. & Lin, Y. The change of Southern Hemisphere extratropical cyclone precipitation characteristics in SSP5-8.5 scenario in CMIP6 models. Clim Dyn 61, 2443–2456 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-023-06686-x

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