Temperature and precipitation extremes in century-long gridded observations, reanalyses, and atmospheric model simulations
Knowledge about long-term changes in climate extremes is vital to better understand multidecadal climate variability and long-term changes and to place today’s extreme events in a historical context. While global changes in temperature and precipitation extremes since the midtwentieth century are we...
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ftunivreading:oai:centaur.reading.ac.uk:72421 2024-06-23T07:56:43+00:00 Temperature and precipitation extremes in century-long gridded observations, reanalyses, and atmospheric model simulations Donat, Markus G. Alexander, Lisa V. Herold, Nicholas Dittus, Andrea 2016-10-16 text https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/72421/ https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/72421/1/Donat_et_al-2016-Journal_of_Geophysical_Research-_Atmospheres.pdf https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JD025480 en eng American Geophysical Union https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/72421/1/Donat_et_al-2016-Journal_of_Geophysical_Research-_Atmospheres.pdf Donat, M. G., Alexander, L. V., Herold, N. and Dittus, A. <https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/view/creators/90008382.html> orcid:0000-0001-9598-6869 (2016) Temperature and precipitation extremes in century-long gridded observations, reanalyses, and atmospheric model simulations. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 121 (19). 11,174-11,189. ISSN 2169-897X doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JD025480 <https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JD025480> Article PeerReviewed 2016 ftunivreading https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JD025480 2024-06-11T15:06:49Z Knowledge about long-term changes in climate extremes is vital to better understand multidecadal climate variability and long-term changes and to place today’s extreme events in a historical context. While global changes in temperature and precipitation extremes since the midtwentieth century are well studied, knowledge about century-scale changes is limited. This paper analyses a range of largely independent observations-based data sets covering 1901–2010 for long-term changes and interannual variability in daily scale temperature and precipitation extremes. We compare across data sets for consistency to ascertain our confidence in century-scale changes in extremes. We find consistent warming trends in temperature extremes globally and in most land areas over the past century. For precipitation extremes we find global tendencies toward more intense rainfall throughout much of the twentieth century; however, local changes are spatially more variable. While global time series of the different data sets agree well after about 1950, they often show different changes during the first half of the twentieth century. In regions with good observational coverage, gridded observations and reanalyses agree well throughout the entire past century. Simulations with an atmospheric model suggest that ocean temperatures and sea ice may explain up to about 50% of interannual variability in the global average of temperature extremes, and about 15% in the global average of moderate precipitation extremes, but local correlations are mostly significant only in low latitudes. Article in Journal/Newspaper Sea ice CentAUR: Central Archive at the University of Reading Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 121 19 |
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CentAUR: Central Archive at the University of Reading |
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ftunivreading |
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English |
description |
Knowledge about long-term changes in climate extremes is vital to better understand multidecadal climate variability and long-term changes and to place today’s extreme events in a historical context. While global changes in temperature and precipitation extremes since the midtwentieth century are well studied, knowledge about century-scale changes is limited. This paper analyses a range of largely independent observations-based data sets covering 1901–2010 for long-term changes and interannual variability in daily scale temperature and precipitation extremes. We compare across data sets for consistency to ascertain our confidence in century-scale changes in extremes. We find consistent warming trends in temperature extremes globally and in most land areas over the past century. For precipitation extremes we find global tendencies toward more intense rainfall throughout much of the twentieth century; however, local changes are spatially more variable. While global time series of the different data sets agree well after about 1950, they often show different changes during the first half of the twentieth century. In regions with good observational coverage, gridded observations and reanalyses agree well throughout the entire past century. Simulations with an atmospheric model suggest that ocean temperatures and sea ice may explain up to about 50% of interannual variability in the global average of temperature extremes, and about 15% in the global average of moderate precipitation extremes, but local correlations are mostly significant only in low latitudes. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Donat, Markus G. Alexander, Lisa V. Herold, Nicholas Dittus, Andrea |
spellingShingle |
Donat, Markus G. Alexander, Lisa V. Herold, Nicholas Dittus, Andrea Temperature and precipitation extremes in century-long gridded observations, reanalyses, and atmospheric model simulations |
author_facet |
Donat, Markus G. Alexander, Lisa V. Herold, Nicholas Dittus, Andrea |
author_sort |
Donat, Markus G. |
title |
Temperature and precipitation extremes in century-long gridded observations, reanalyses, and atmospheric model simulations |
title_short |
Temperature and precipitation extremes in century-long gridded observations, reanalyses, and atmospheric model simulations |
title_full |
Temperature and precipitation extremes in century-long gridded observations, reanalyses, and atmospheric model simulations |
title_fullStr |
Temperature and precipitation extremes in century-long gridded observations, reanalyses, and atmospheric model simulations |
title_full_unstemmed |
Temperature and precipitation extremes in century-long gridded observations, reanalyses, and atmospheric model simulations |
title_sort |
temperature and precipitation extremes in century-long gridded observations, reanalyses, and atmospheric model simulations |
publisher |
American Geophysical Union |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/72421/ https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/72421/1/Donat_et_al-2016-Journal_of_Geophysical_Research-_Atmospheres.pdf https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JD025480 |
genre |
Sea ice |
genre_facet |
Sea ice |
op_relation |
https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/72421/1/Donat_et_al-2016-Journal_of_Geophysical_Research-_Atmospheres.pdf Donat, M. G., Alexander, L. V., Herold, N. and Dittus, A. <https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/view/creators/90008382.html> orcid:0000-0001-9598-6869 (2016) Temperature and precipitation extremes in century-long gridded observations, reanalyses, and atmospheric model simulations. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 121 (19). 11,174-11,189. ISSN 2169-897X doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JD025480 <https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JD025480> |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JD025480 |
container_title |
Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres |
container_volume |
121 |
container_issue |
19 |
_version_ |
1802650013422059520 |