Changing spatial structure of summer heavy rainfall, using convection‐permitting ensemble
File(s)2020GL090903.pdf (1.25 MB)
Published version
Author(s)
Chen, Yuting
Paschalis, Athanasios
Kendon, Elizabeth
Kim, Dongkyun
Onof, Christian
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Subdaily rainfall extremes have been found to intensify, both from observations and climate model simulations, but much uncertainty remains regarding future changes in the spatial structure of rainfall events. Here, future changes in the characteristics of heavy summer rainfall are analyzed by using two sets (1980–2000, 2060–2080) of 12‐member 20‐year‐long convection‐permitting ensemble simulations (2.2 km, hourly) over the UK. We investigated how the peak intensity, spatial coverage and the speed of rainfall events will change and how those changes jointly affect hourly extremes at different spatial scales. We found that in addition to the intensification of heavy rainfall events, the spatial extent tends to increase in all three subregions, and by up to 49.3% in the North‐West. These changes act to exacerbate intensity increases in extremes for most of spatial scales (North: 30.2%–34.0%, South: 25.8%). The increase in areal extremes is particularly pronounced for catchments with sizes 20–500 km2.
Date Issued
2021-02-16
Date Acceptance
2020-11-17
Citation
Geophysical Research Letters, 2021, 48 (3)
ISSN
0094-8276
Publisher
Wiley
Journal / Book Title
Geophysical Research Letters
Volume
48
Issue
3
Copyright Statement
© 2020. The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
License URL
Sponsor
Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
Grant Number
NE/S003495/1
Subjects
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
e2020GL090903
Date Publish Online
2020-12-14