Unveiling four decades of intensifying precipitation from tropical cyclones using satellite measurements
Increases in precipitation rates and volumes from tropical cyclones (TCs) caused by anthropogenic warming are predicted by climate modeling studies and have been identified in several high intensity storms occurring over the last half decade. However, it has been difficult to detect historical trend...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:9363467 2023-05-15T17:35:34+02:00 Unveiling four decades of intensifying precipitation from tropical cyclones using satellite measurements Shearer, Eric J. Afzali Gorooh, Vesta Nguyen, Phu Hsu, Kuo-Lin Sorooshian, Soroosh 2022-08-09 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9363467/ https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-17640-y en eng Nature Publishing Group UK http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9363467/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-17640-y © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . CC-BY Sci Rep Article Text 2022 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-17640-y 2022-08-14T00:53:59Z Increases in precipitation rates and volumes from tropical cyclones (TCs) caused by anthropogenic warming are predicted by climate modeling studies and have been identified in several high intensity storms occurring over the last half decade. However, it has been difficult to detect historical trends in TC precipitation at time scales long enough to overcome natural climate variability because of limitations in existing precipitation observations. We introduce an experimental global high-resolution climate data record of precipitation produced using infrared satellite imagery and corrected at the monthly scale by a gauge-derived product that shows generally good performance during two hurricane case studies but estimates higher mean precipitation rates in the tropics than the evaluation datasets. General increases in mean and extreme rainfall rates during the study period of 1980–2019 are identified, culminating in a 12–18%/40-year increase in global rainfall rates. Overall, all basins have experienced intensification in precipitation rates. Increases in rainfall rates have boosted the mean precipitation volume of global TCs by 7–15%/year, with the starkest rises seen in the North Atlantic, South Indian, and South Pacific basins (maximum 59–64% over 40 years). In terms of inland rainfall totals, year-by-year trends are generally positive due to increasing TC frequency, slower decay over land, and more intense rainfall, with an alarming increase of 81–85% seen from the strongest global TCs. As the global trend in precipitation rates follows expectations from warming sea surface temperatures (11.1%/°C), we hypothesize that the observed trends could be a result of anthropogenic warming creating greater concentrations of water vapor in the atmosphere, though retrospective studies of TC dynamics over the period are needed to confirm. Text North Atlantic PubMed Central (PMC) Indian Pacific Scientific Reports 12 1 |
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Article Shearer, Eric J. Afzali Gorooh, Vesta Nguyen, Phu Hsu, Kuo-Lin Sorooshian, Soroosh Unveiling four decades of intensifying precipitation from tropical cyclones using satellite measurements |
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Increases in precipitation rates and volumes from tropical cyclones (TCs) caused by anthropogenic warming are predicted by climate modeling studies and have been identified in several high intensity storms occurring over the last half decade. However, it has been difficult to detect historical trends in TC precipitation at time scales long enough to overcome natural climate variability because of limitations in existing precipitation observations. We introduce an experimental global high-resolution climate data record of precipitation produced using infrared satellite imagery and corrected at the monthly scale by a gauge-derived product that shows generally good performance during two hurricane case studies but estimates higher mean precipitation rates in the tropics than the evaluation datasets. General increases in mean and extreme rainfall rates during the study period of 1980–2019 are identified, culminating in a 12–18%/40-year increase in global rainfall rates. Overall, all basins have experienced intensification in precipitation rates. Increases in rainfall rates have boosted the mean precipitation volume of global TCs by 7–15%/year, with the starkest rises seen in the North Atlantic, South Indian, and South Pacific basins (maximum 59–64% over 40 years). In terms of inland rainfall totals, year-by-year trends are generally positive due to increasing TC frequency, slower decay over land, and more intense rainfall, with an alarming increase of 81–85% seen from the strongest global TCs. As the global trend in precipitation rates follows expectations from warming sea surface temperatures (11.1%/°C), we hypothesize that the observed trends could be a result of anthropogenic warming creating greater concentrations of water vapor in the atmosphere, though retrospective studies of TC dynamics over the period are needed to confirm. |
format |
Text |
author |
Shearer, Eric J. Afzali Gorooh, Vesta Nguyen, Phu Hsu, Kuo-Lin Sorooshian, Soroosh |
author_facet |
Shearer, Eric J. Afzali Gorooh, Vesta Nguyen, Phu Hsu, Kuo-Lin Sorooshian, Soroosh |
author_sort |
Shearer, Eric J. |
title |
Unveiling four decades of intensifying precipitation from tropical cyclones using satellite measurements |
title_short |
Unveiling four decades of intensifying precipitation from tropical cyclones using satellite measurements |
title_full |
Unveiling four decades of intensifying precipitation from tropical cyclones using satellite measurements |
title_fullStr |
Unveiling four decades of intensifying precipitation from tropical cyclones using satellite measurements |
title_full_unstemmed |
Unveiling four decades of intensifying precipitation from tropical cyclones using satellite measurements |
title_sort |
unveiling four decades of intensifying precipitation from tropical cyclones using satellite measurements |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group UK |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9363467/ https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-17640-y |
geographic |
Indian Pacific |
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Indian Pacific |
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North Atlantic |
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North Atlantic |
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Sci Rep |
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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9363467/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-17640-y |
op_rights |
© The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
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CC-BY |
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https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-17640-y |
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