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Extreme Precipitation Return Levels for Multiple Durations on a Global Scale
  • +4
  • Gaby J Gründemann,
  • Enrico Zorzetto,
  • Hylke E Beck,
  • Marc Schleiss,
  • Nick Van de Giesen,
  • Marco Marani,
  • Ruud J. van der Ent
Gaby J Gründemann
Delft University of Technology, Delft University of Technology, Delft University of Technology

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Enrico Zorzetto
Duke University, Duke University, Duke University
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Hylke E Beck
Princeton Universtiy, Princeton Universtiy, Princeton Universtiy
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Marc Schleiss
TU-Delft, TU-Delft, TU-Delft
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Nick Van de Giesen
Delft University of Technology, Delft University of Technology, Delft University of Technology
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Marco Marani
University of Padua and Duke University, University of Padua and Duke University, University of Padua and Duke University
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Ruud J. van der Ent
Delft University of Technology, Delft University of Technology, Delft University of Technology
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Abstract

Quantifying the magnitude and frequency of extreme precipitation events is key in translating climate observations to planning and engineering design. Past efforts have mostly focused on the estimation of daily extremes using gauge observations. Recent development of high-resolution global precipitation products, now allow estimation of global extremes. This research aims to quantitatively characterize the spatiotemporal behavior of precipitation extremes, by calculating extreme precipitation return levels for multiple durations on the global domain using the Multi-Source Weighted-Ensemble Precipitation (MSWEP) dataset. Both classical and novel extreme value distributions are used to provide an insight into the spatial patterns of precipitation extremes. Our results show that the traditional Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) distribution and Peak-Over-Threshold (POT) methods, which only use the largest events to estimate precipitation extremes, are not spatially coherent. The recently developed Metastatistical Extreme Value (MEV) distribution, that includes all precipitation events, leads to smoother spatial patterns of local extremes. While the GEV and POT methods predict a consistent shift from heavy to thin tails with increasing duration, the heaviness of the tail obtained with MEV was relatively unaffected by the precipitation duration. The generated extreme precipitation return levels and corresponding parameters are provided as the Global Precipitation EXtremes (GPEX) dataset. These data can be useful for studying the underlying physical processes causing the spatiotemporal variations of the heaviness of extreme precipitation distributions.