In a new study published in Nature Geoscience, Drs. Ping Chang and Dan Fu, together with their collaborators at the National Science Foundation's National Center for Atmospheric Research and other institutions, show that mesoscale moisture convergence, rather than thermodynamic effects alone, govern much of the projected intensification of extreme rainfall in a warming climate. Their findings have broad implications for flood-risk assessment, water-resource planning and climate adaptation strategies, particularly in regions where organized convection dominates precipitation.
Chang is a University Distinguished Professor, a Texas A&M Systems Regents Professor and the Louis & Elizabeth Scherck Chair in Oceanography in the Department of Oceanography. Fu is an assistant professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences.
Through the MESoscale Atmosphere-Ocean Interactions in Seasonal-to Decadal Climate Prediction (MESACLIP) Project funded the National Science Foundation, the team is working to understand the role of multiscale ocean-atmosphere interactions in extreme events using the high-resolution Community Earth System Model. MESACLIP is a collaboration between Texas A&M University and the National Science Foundation's National Center for Atmospheric Research.
According to Markus Donat with the ICREA (Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies) in Barcelona, Spain, this study provides a convincing demonstration of the benefits of high-resolution global climate models in simulating the processes associated with extreme precipitation events more realistically. Donat's comments from a Nature Geoscience research briefing reinforce that these improved models predict substantially stronger intensification of extreme precipitation in future warming scenarios compared with current models at coarser resolution highlighting that these current models likely underestimate future climate risks.
Read more about the study on science.org in a story by Paul Voosen. Science.org hosts the journal Science, a peer-reviewed scientific journal and a source for news and commentary on science.
The research will also be featured soon in a Research Briefing in Nature Geoscience. Nature Geoscience is a specialized monthly journal focused exclusively on research within Earth and planetary sciences. The Research Briefing is an invited publication commissioned by Nature Geoscience to highlight the scientific significance and societal impact of recently published studies. Only about 15 to 20% of papers in Nature Geoscience are selected for this honor.
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