Changes in the distribution of rain frequency and intensity in response to global warming

Changes in the frequency and intensity of rainfall are an important potential impact of climate change. Two modes of change, a shift and an increase, are applied to simulations of global warming with models from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). The response to CO₂ doubling in the multimodel mean of CMIP5 daily rainfall is characterized by an increase of 1% K⁻¹ at all rain rates and a shift to higher rain rates of 3.3% K⁻¹. In addition to these increase and shift modes of change, some models also show a substantial increase in rainfall at the highest rain rates called the extreme mode of response to warming. In some models, this extreme mode can be shown to be associated with increases in grid-scale condensation or gridpoint storms.

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Author Pendergrass, Angeline
Hartmann, Dennis
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2014-11-15T00:00:00
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Topic Category geoscientificInformation
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Metadata Date 2023-08-18T18:57:14.965529
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:14466
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Pendergrass, Angeline, Hartmann, Dennis. (2014). Changes in the distribution of rain frequency and intensity in response to global warming. UCAR/NCAR - Library. http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7x06820. Accessed 12 May 2025.

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