Atmospheric Warming and the Amplification of Precipitation Extremes
Abstract
Climate models suggest that extreme precipitation events will become more common in an anthropogenically warmed climate. However, observational limitations have hindered a direct evaluation of model-projected changes in extreme precipitation. We used satellite observations and model simulations to examine the response of tropical precipitation events to naturally driven changes in surface temperature and atmospheric moisture content. These observations reveal a distinct link between rainfall extremes and temperature, with heavy rain events increasing during warm periods and decreasing during cold periods. Furthermore, the observed amplification of rainfall extremes is found to be larger than that predicted by models, implying that projections of future changes in rainfall extremes in response to anthropogenic global warming may be underestimated.
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Thanks to the World Climate Research Programme for enabling the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison model archive (www-pcmdi.llnl.gov). R.A. was supported by the UK Natural Environment Research Council grants NE/C51785X/1 and the National Centre for Earth Observation. B.S. was supported by grants from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Climate Prediction Office and NASA Energy and Water Cycle Study. Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) data were extracted from www.ncdc.noaa.gov; SSM/I data were provided by Remote Sensing Systems. Comments by K. Hodges and two anonymous reviewers helped to improve the manuscript.
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Science
Volume 321 | Issue 5895
12 September 2008
12 September 2008
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American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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Received: 21 May 2008
Accepted: 29 July 2008
Published in print: 12 September 2008
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