Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Strong increase in convective precipitation in response to higher temperatures
SMHI, Research Department, Climate research - Rossby Centre.
2013 (English)In: Nature Geoscience, ISSN 1752-0894, E-ISSN 1752-0908, Vol. 6, no 3, p. 181-185Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Precipitation changes can affect society more directly than variations in most other meteorological observables(1-3), but precipitation is difficult to characterize because of fluctuations on nearly all temporal and spatial scales. In addition, the intensity of extreme precipitation rises markedly at higher temperature(4-9), faster than the rate of increase in the atmosphere's water-holding capacity(1,4), termed the Clausius-Clapeyron rate. Invigoration of convective precipitation (such as thunderstorms) has been favoured over a rise in strati-form precipitation (such as large-scale frontal precipitation) as a cause for this increase(4,10), but the relative contributions of these two types of precipitation have been difficult to disentangle. Here we combine large data sets from radar measurements and rain gauges over Germany with corresponding synoptic observations and temperature records, and separate convective and stratiform precipitation events by cloud observations. We find that for stratiform precipitation, extremes increase with temperature at approximately the Clausius-Clapeyron rate, without characteristic scales. In contrast, convective precipitation exhibits characteristic spatial and temporal scales, and its intensity in response to warming exceeds the Clausius-Clapeyron rate. We conclude that convective precipitation responds much more sensitively to temperature increases than stratiform precipitation, and increasingly dominates events of extreme precipitation.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2013. Vol. 6, no 3, p. 181-185
National Category
Climate Research
Research subject
Climate
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:smhi:diva-386DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1731ISI: 000316945800016OAI: oai:DiVA.org:smhi-386DiVA, id: diva2:800249
Available from: 2015-04-02 Created: 2015-03-31 Last updated: 2018-05-07Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

No full text in DiVA

Other links

Publisher's full text

Authority records

Berg, Peter

Search in DiVA

By author/editor
Berg, Peter
By organisation
Climate research - Rossby Centre
In the same journal
Nature Geoscience
Climate Research

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar

doi
urn-nbn

Altmetric score

doi
urn-nbn
Total: 450 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf