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Observed Scaling of Precipitation Extremes with Surface Temperature and Convective Available Potential Energy (Invited Chapter for the AGU Geophysical Monograph Series “Clouds and Climate”)
  • Wenhao Dong,
  • Yanluan Lin
Wenhao Dong
Tsinghua University

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Yanluan Lin
Tsinghua University
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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.
19 Dec 2023Published in Clouds and their Climatic Impacts on pages 287-302. 10.1002/9781119700357.ch14