EGU22-1996
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-1996
EGU General Assembly 2022
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Reduced rainfall in future heavy precipitation events tied to decreased rain area and takes place despite increased rain rate

Moshe Armon1,2, Francesco Marra1,3, Chaim Garfinkel1, Dorita Rostkier-Edelstein1,4, Ori Adam1, Uri Dayan5, Yehouda Enzel1, and Efrat Morin1
Moshe Armon et al.
  • 1The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, The Fredy & Nadine Herrmann Institute of Earth Sciences, Jerusalem, Israel (moshe.armon@mail.huji.ac.il)
  • 2Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
  • 3Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, National Research Council of Italy, CNR-ISAC, Bologna, Italy
  • 4Department of Environmental Physics, Environmental Sciences Division, IIBR, Ness-Ziona, Israel
  • 5Department of Geography, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

Heavy precipitation events (HPEs) can lead to deadly and costly natural disasters and, especially in regions where rainfall variability is high, such as the eastern Mediterranean, they are critical to the hydrological budget. Reliable projections of future HPEs are needed, but global climate models are too coarse to explicitly represent rainfall processes during HPEs. In this study we used pseudo global warming high-resolution (1 km2) weather research and forecasting (WRF) model simulations to provide rainfall patterns projections based on simulations of 41 pairs of historic and “future” (end of 21st century) HPEs under global warming conditions (RCP8.5 scenario). Changes in rainfall patterns were analyzed through different properties: storm mean conditional rain rate, storm duration, and rain area. A major decrease in rainfall accumulation occurs in future HPEs (−30% averaged across events). This decrease results from a substantial reduction of the storms rain area (−40%) and duration (−9%), and occurs despite an increase in the mean conditional rain intensity (+15%). The consistency of results across events, driven by varying synoptic conditions, suggests that these changes have low sensitivity to the specific synoptic evolution during the events. Future HPEs in the eastern Mediterranean will therefore likely be drier and more spatiotemporally concentrated, with substantial implications on hydrological outcomes of storms. (For hydrological results see: abstract #EGU22-4777)

  • Armon, M., Marra, F., Enzel, Y., Rostkier‐Edelstein, D., Garfinkel, C. I., Adam, O., et al. (2022). Reduced Rainfall in Future Heavy Precipitation Events Related to Contracted Rain Area Despite Increased Rain Rate. Earth’s Future, 10(1), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021ef002397

How to cite: Armon, M., Marra, F., Garfinkel, C., Rostkier-Edelstein, D., Adam, O., Dayan, U., Enzel, Y., and Morin, E.: Reduced rainfall in future heavy precipitation events tied to decreased rain area and takes place despite increased rain rate, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-1996, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-1996, 2022.

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