Abstract
The effect of climate change on precipitation intensity is well
documented. However, findings regarding changes in spatial extent of
extreme precipitation events are still ambiguous as previous studies
focused on particular regions and time domains. This study addresses
this ambiguity by investigating the pattern of changes in the spatial
extent of short duration extreme precipitation events globally. A
grid-based indicator termed Spatial-Homogeneity (SH) is proposed and
used to assess the changes of spatial extent in Global Precipitation
Measurement (GPM) records. This study shows that i) rising temperature
causes significant shrinking of precipitation extent in tropics, but an
expansion of precipitation extent in arid regions, ii) storms with
higher precipitation intensity show a faster decrease in spatial extent,
iii) larger spatial extent storms are associated with higher total
precipitable water. Results imply that in a warming climate, tropics may
experience severe floods as storms may become more intense and spatially
concentrated.