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Future intensity-duration-frequency curves of extreme precipitation in the Midwest United States from convection-permitting modelling
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  • Trung Quang Nguyen,
  • Ben Kravitz,
  • Travis Allen O'Brien,
  • Darren L Ficklin,
  • Kristen Lani Rasmussen,
  • Andrew Kruczkiewicz,
  • Jiyun Huang,
  • Tony Li,
  • Abraham Lauer
Trung Quang Nguyen
Indiana University

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Ben Kravitz
Indiana University
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Travis Allen O'Brien
Indiana University Bloomington
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Darren L Ficklin
Indiana University Bloomington
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Kristen Lani Rasmussen
Colorado State University
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Andrew Kruczkiewicz
Columbia University
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Jiyun Huang
Clemson University
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Tony Li
Indiana University
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Abraham Lauer
Guy Carpenter & Company, LLC,
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Abstract

During the last four decades, global warming has intensified extreme precipitation events in the Midwestern United States (defined here as the region covering Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky), leading to increased risks to human life, property, and infrastructure. To enable climate change adaptation and resilience across various economic and social sectors in this region, updated information about future climate changes, specifically at finer spatial scales, is essential. Leveraging a new 150-year dynamical downscaling dataset at convection-permitting resolution, this study introduces a framework to construct the projected future intensity-duration-frequency (IDF) curves of heavy precipitation, which are prominent tools for infrastructure design and water resources management. This framework generates IDF curves at both sub-daily and multi-day duration utilizing hourly in situ observations as well as quantile-based statistical techniques in bias-correction and return levels selection. The assumption of non-stationarity in the distribution parameter fitting process is also implemented in this workflow. Compared to historical IDF curves for 1980-2022, future projected IDF curves for 2058-2100 under Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5 and RCP 8.5 scenarios indicate an average intensity increase of approximately 20% and 30%, respectively, across 74 stations and all four seasons of interest. The frequency of future extreme precipitation events in the Midwest region is also projected to double. Furthermore, current results reveal spatial heterogeneity of future trends across stations owing to the high-resolution input dataset.
27 Oct 2024Submitted to ESS Open Archive
28 Oct 2024Published in ESS Open Archive