Observed Scaling of Precipitation Extremes with Surface Temperature and
Convective Available Potential Energy (Invited Chapter for the AGU
Geophysical Monograph Series “Clouds and Climate”)
Abstract
Changes in precipitation extremes remain a key uncertainty as the
climate warms. Improved understanding of their evolution is crucial for
effective water management. A number of studies have demonstrated
various scaling relationships between precipitation extremes and several
different environmental variables. In this chapter, we review recent
important advances in two of these relationships primarily based on
observations: The scaling of precipitation extremes with surface
temperature (both air temperature and dew point temperature) and
convective available potential energy (CAPE). Two up-to-date global
daily datasets are also used to provide a further check on the
generality of earlier findings. Known scaling relationships are used to
quantify the impacts of these two factors on precipitation extremes.
Results show that both of them play important roles, but their impacts
vary over different regions on various time scales, highlighting the
challenges of constructing global relationships to explain the changing
nature of precipitation extremes.