How often does it rain?

Daily precipitation data from worldwide stations and gridded analyses and from 18 coupled global climate models are used to evaluate the models' performance in simulating the precipitation frequency, intensity, and the number of rainy days contributing to most (i.e., 67%) of the annual precipitation total. Although the models examined here are able to simulate the land precipitation amount well, most of them are unable to reproduce the spatial patterns of the precipitation frequency and intensity. For light precipitation (1-10 mm day-1), most models overestimate the frequency but produce patterns of the intensity that are in broad agreement with observations. In contrast, for heavy precipitation (>10 mm day-1), most models considerably underestimate the intensity but simulate the frequency relatively well. The average number of rainy days contributing to most of the annual precipitation is a simple index that captures the combined effects of precipitation frequency and intensity on the water supply. The different measures of precipitation characteristics examined in this paper reveal region-to-region differences in the observations and models of relevance for climate variability, water resources, and climate change.

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Copyright 2006 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law (17 USC, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the Society's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form on servers, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statements, requires written permission or license from the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policies, available from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or amspubs@ametsoc.org. Permission to place a copy of this work on this server has been provided by the AMS. The AMS does not guarantee that the copy provided here is an accurate copy of the published work.


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Author Sun, Y.
Solomon, Stanley
Dai, A.
Portmann, R.
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2006-03-15T00:00:00
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Topic Category geoscientificInformation
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Metadata Date 2023-08-18T18:39:06.468666
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:6200
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Sun, Y., Solomon, Stanley, Dai, A., Portmann, R.. (2006). How often does it rain?. UCAR/NCAR - Library. http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7988769. Accessed 28 March 2024.

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