Heavier summer downpours with climate change revealed by weather forecast resolution model

ABSTRACT The intensification of precipitation extremes with climate change1 is of key importance to society as a result of the large impact through flooding. Observations show that heavy

rainfall is increasing on daily timescales in many regions2, but how changes will manifest themselves on sub-daily timescales remains highly uncertain. Here we perform the first climate

change experiments with a very high resolution (1.5 km grid spacing) model more typically used for weather forecasting, in this instance for a region of the UK. The model simulates realistic

hourly rainfall characteristics, including extremes3,4, unlike coarser resolution climate models5,6, giving us confidence in its ability to project future changes at this timescale. We find

the 1.5 km model shows increases in hourly rainfall intensities in winter, consistent with projections from a coarser 12 km resolution model and previous studies at the daily timescale7.

However, the 1.5 km model also shows a future intensification of short-duration rain in summer, with significantly more events exceeding the high thresholds indicative of serious flash

flooding. We conclude that accurate representation of the local storm dynamics is an essential requirement for predicting changes to convective extremes; when included we find for the model

here that summer downpours intensify with warming. Access through your institution Buy or subscribe This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution ACCESS OPTIONS

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institutional subscriptions * Read our FAQs * Contact customer support SIMILAR CONTENT BEING VIEWED BY OTHERS INCREASES IN EXTREME PRECIPITATION OVER THE NORTHEAST UNITED STATES USING

HIGH-RESOLUTION CLIMATE MODEL SIMULATIONS Article Open access 22 March 2023 VARIABILITY CONCEALS EMERGING TREND IN 100YR PROJECTIONS OF UK LOCAL HOURLY RAINFALL EXTREMES Article Open access

07 March 2023 LARGE-SCALE DYNAMICS MODERATE IMPACT-RELEVANT CHANGES TO ORGANISED CONVECTIVE STORMS Article Open access 05 January 2023 REFERENCES * Trenberth, K. E., Dai, A., Rasmussen, R.

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description—Part 1: Energy and water fluxes. _Geosci. Model Dev._ 4, 595–640 (2011). Article  Google Scholar  Download references ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thanks to colleagues across the UK Met

Office for their help in setting up the 1.5 km and 12 km model experiments, especially C. Wang, J. Bornemann and W. Moufouma-Okia. Also thanks to J. Wilkinson, P. Field, C. Pilling and H.

Lean for useful discussions. We gratefully acknowledge funding from the Joint Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) Met

Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme (GA01101). This work also forms part of a joint UK Met Office and Natural Environment Research Council (UKMO-NERC) funded project on Convective

Extremes (CONVEX, NE/1006680/1). AUTHOR INFORMATION AUTHORS AND AFFILIATIONS * Met Office Hadley Centre, FitzRoy Road, Exeter, EX1 3PB, UK Elizabeth J. Kendon, Malcolm J. Roberts & 

Catherine A. Senior * MetOffice@Reading, Reading, RG6 6BB, UK Nigel M. Roberts * School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle, NE1 7RU, UK Hayley J. Fowler 

& Steven C. Chan Authors * Elizabeth J. Kendon View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Nigel M. Roberts View author publications You can

also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Hayley J. Fowler View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Malcolm J. Roberts View author

publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Steven C. Chan View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Catherine A.

Senior View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar CONTRIBUTIONS E.J.K. carried out the 1.5 km and 12 km model experiments and wrote the paper.

N.M.R. analysed the performance of the 1.5 km model from weather forecasts, produced Supplementary Fig. 1, and along with H.J.F. extensively contributed to the manuscript. M.J.R. ran the 60

km global model experiments. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript. CORRESPONDING AUTHOR Correspondence to Elizabeth J. Kendon. ETHICS DECLARATIONS COMPETING

INTERESTS The authors declare no competing financial interests. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION (PDF 417 KB) RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Reprints and permissions ABOUT THIS

ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Kendon, E., Roberts, N., Fowler, H. _et al._ Heavier summer downpours with climate change revealed by weather forecast resolution model. _Nature Clim Change_ 4,

570–576 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2258 Download citation * Received: 07 February 2014 * Accepted: 06 May 2014 * Published: 01 June 2014 * Issue Date: July 2014 * DOI:

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