Premium
Changing Spatial Structure of Summer Heavy Rainfall, Using Convection‐Permitting Ensemble
Author(s) -
Chen Yuting,
Paschalis Athanasios,
Kendon Elizabeth,
Kim Dongkyun,
Onof Christian
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2020gl090903
Subject(s) - environmental science , climatology , ensemble average , climate change , climate extremes , convection , intensity (physics) , spatial distribution , spatial variability , spatial ecology , meteorology , atmospheric sciences , precipitation , geology , geography , physics , ecology , oceanography , remote sensing , statistics , mathematics , quantum mechanics , biology
Subdaily rainfall extremes have been found to intensify, both from observations and climate model simulations, but much uncertainty remains regarding future changes in the spatial structure of rainfall events. Here, future changes in the characteristics of heavy summer rainfall are analyzed by using two sets (1980–2000, 2060–2080) of 12‐member 20‐year‐long convection‐permitting ensemble simulations (2.2 km, hourly) over the UK. We investigated how the peak intensity, spatial coverage and the speed of rainfall events will change and how those changes jointly affect hourly extremes at different spatial scales. We found that in addition to the intensification of heavy rainfall events, the spatial extent tends to increase in all three subregions, and by up to 49.3% in the North‐West. These changes act to exacerbate intensity increases in extremes for most of spatial scales (North: 30.2%–34.0%, South: 25.8%). The increase in areal extremes is particularly pronounced for catchments with sizes 20–500 km 2 .