Chang, M., Liu, B., Wang, B., Martinez-Villalobos, C., Ren, G., & Zhou, T. (2022). Understanding future increases in precipitation extremes in global land monsoon regions. J. Clim., 35, 1839–1851.
Abstract: This study investigates future changes in daily precipitation extremes and the involved physics over the global land monsoon (GM) region using climate models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6). The daily precipitation extreme is identified by the cutoff scale, measuring the extreme tail of the precipitation distribution. Compared to the historical period, multi-model results reveal a continuous increase in precipitation extremes under four scenarios, with a progressively higher fraction of precipitation exceeding the historical cutoff scale when moving into the future. The rise of the cutoff-scale by the end of the century is reduced by 57.8% in the moderate emission scenario relative to the highest scenario, underscoring the social benefit in reducing emissions. The cutoff scale sensitivity, defined by the increasing rates of the cutoff scale over the GM region to the global mean surface temperature increase, is nearly independent of the projected periods and emission scenarios, roughly 8.0% K−1 by averaging all periods and scenarios. To understand the cause of the changes, we applied a physical scaling diagnostic to decompose them into thermodynamic and dynamic contributions. We find that thermodynamics and dynamics have comparable contributions to the intensified precipitation extremes in the GM region. Changes in thermodynamic scaling contribute to a spatially uniform increase pattern, while changes in dynamic scaling dominate the regional differences in the increased precipitation extremes. Furthermore, the large inter-model spread of the projection is primarily attributed to variations of dynamic scaling among models.
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Zhang, S. H., Chen, Y. R. X., Luo, Y. L., Liu, B., Ren, G. Y., Zhou, T. J., et al. (2022). Revealing the Circulation Pattern Most Conducive to Precipitation Extremes in Henan Province of North China. Geophys. Res. Lett., 49(7), e2022GL098034.
Abstract: Two catastrophic extreme precipitation events in July 2021 and August 1975 caused tremendous damages and deaths in Henan, one of the most populated provinces in China. Revealing the relationship between large-scale circulation patterns and precipitation extremes is vital for understanding the physical mechanisms and providing potential value for improving prediction and hence reducing impacts. Here, nine large-scale circulation patterns are identified for July-August using the self-organizing map. We find daily precipitation extremes under the fifth pattern (P5), characterized with the strongest easterly wind anomalies in Henan, feature the highest frequency and the largest intensity. Seven out of total 11 days in the two catastrophic extreme precipitation events belong to P5, and the top two maximum hourly precipitation extremes over continental China occurred under P5. The larger intensity of precipitation extremes is attributed to the dynamical contribution, suggesting more-intense precipitation extremes under P5 are largely dominated by stronger ascending motions.
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