Following on from the NERC Changing Water Cycle programme in which I contributed to the PAGODA and HydEF projects I routinely record some recent updates to the literature on this subject.
Changing Water Cycle papers
Current Changes |
Water vapour |
Dry/Wet region response |
Extremes |
Energy Balance |
Links to circulation |
Land surface |
Paleo/Other
See also Hemispheric Asymmetry on DEEP-C page.
Current Trends
Kenfack et al. (2024) IJOC: drying of Congo basin since 1980s associated with reduced heating source from precipitation and decliningt moisture transport
Jeon et al. (2023) JGR: convective precipitation decreases in ERA5 due to increased atmospheric stability but increases in JRA-55 due to larger inreases in water vapour in the Pacific ITCZ during JJA 1980-2020 while large-scale precipitation increases in both reanalyses are associated with increased medium altitude cloud fraction
Peng et al. (2023) Rem. Sens. Env.: global drying in soil moisture of -0.10×10-3 m3/m3/yr over past 22 years dominated by southern hemisphere
Luo et al. (2023) J. Hydrol.: decreasing root zone soil moisture on average globally of 0.14×10-3 m3/m3 per year during 1981-2017 that ius correlated with warming
Guo & Adler (2022) Clim. Dyn.: weak current trends in global precipitation in GPCP and CMIP6 with variability linked to greenhouse gas forcing and multi-decadal internal variability
Dabar et al. (2022) MDPI clim.: Drying in Djibouti 1961-2021 including 2006/2007 and 2010/2011 droughts but punctuated by intense 2019 Oct.-Dec. rains and with increasing June-Sept rains in west 1981–2021 with links to IOD
Mtewele et al (2022) JMR: Spatially variable changes in East Africa rainfall from TRMM data 1998-2018
Cintra et al. (2022) Clim. Dyn.: Tree-ring oxygen isotopes record a decrease in Amazon dry season rainfall over the past 40 years
Benestad et al. (2022) PLOS Clim.: global area of daily precipitation decreased from 43 to 41% but total daily global rainfall increased from 1440 Gt to 1510 Gt per day based on ERA5 1950-2020.
Christidis & Stott (2022) J. Clim: total anthropogenic forcing, and its greenhouse gas component, can be detected in observed changes of winter precipitation over Europe with increases in precipitation variability in all seasons and increasing frequency of precipitation extremes across Europe except the Mediterranian
Vicente-Serrano et al. (2022) Clim. Dyn.: only a few regions show statistically significant differences in precipitation trends between station observations and CMIP5/6 simulations over 1891–2014
Karypido et al. (2022) GMD: observed and simulated precipitation changes over S Africa
Obarein & Lee (2022) Theor. App. Clim.Rainfall frequency changes more than ammount over Africa with increases in central Sahel and decreases in west Sahel
Haleakala et al. (2022) ERL: Observed rainfall trends in Red Sea region 1981-2020 a mix of shifting wet season lengths and rainfall intensities
Alahacoon et al. (2022) Rem. Sens.: African rainfall trends in TAMSAT 1983-2020 show increases in northern dry regions, little trend in southern and eastern regions
Liu et al. (2021) IJOC: increases in precipitation frequency since 1960 for heavy events, decreases for lighter events apart from over East Asia
Denson et al. (2021) ERL: relative humidity decreases of -1%/decade over Australia since 1950s with a possible link to reduced evaporation
Dai (2021) Clim. Dyn.: precipitation and streamflow increases 1950-2018 over mid-high latitude Eurasia, most of North America, southeast South America, and northwest Australia, and decreases over most of Africa, eastern Australia, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and parts of East Asia, central South America, and the Pacific coasts of Canada
Tao et al. (2021) Clim. Dyn.: relative contributions of global warming, AMO and IPO to seasonal precipitation variability over land since 1930s
Torres-Batllo et al. (2020) J. Hydrol.: Increasing precipitation in southern Andes 1981-2018, particularly during the wettest months with delayed onset and earlier cessation of the rainy season.
Robertson et al. (2020) J. Clim: changes in ocean evaporation since 1979 shows large disparities in 1990-2010 period
Koutsoyiannis (2020) HESS: review and accounting of global water budget - intensification of water cycle difficult to detect amidst substantial variability though signbals from direct human water use and cryosphere-related are emerging
Chang et al. (2020) GRL: Terrestrial water storage estimates from satellite data and modelling shows declines in drylands of the Southwestern North America and Middle East are driven by climate change, whereas anthropogenic water withdrawals may have played larger role over North China
Tramblay et al. (2020) ERL: annual maximum peak river discharge over Africa decreasing up to 1980 and increases trends afterwards, especially in western and southern Africa, and relate to changing thunderstorm activity
Li et al. (2020) Atmos. Res.: reduced vapour pressure deficit in China 1994-2017 explained by declining relative humidity
Gimeno et al. (2020) npjClimatsci.: growing importance of oceanic moisture sources for continental precipitation
Huang et al. (2020) J. Clim.: Decline of Indian summer monsoon 1950-1999 and recovery 1999-2013 dominated by internal climate variability
Murphy et al. (2019) Clim. Res.: More significant precipitation increases in upland than lowland site in SW England since 1879.
Harel & Price (2020) J. Clim.: Empirical analysiis estimates a 40% increase in the number of thunderstorm clusters for every 1-K rise in temperature over Africa
Hart et al. (2019) J. Clim.: Annual mean convective activity increased over Africa by ~10% 1983-2015 with increases >20% in some regions
Cook et al. (2019) Clim. Dyn: Congo basin drying linked with poleward movement of heat lows but Maidment et al. (2015) GRL found that it is partly an artifact of changing gauge coverage that affects many datasets
Parracho et al. (2018) ACP: column moistening trends in ERA Interim and MERRA corroborated by GPS observations 1995-2010 (within 2.6%/decade in the northern hemisphere)
Rinke et al. (2019) J.Clim: Sub-Clausius Clapeyron increases in water vapour are found over the central Arctic (from 2-3%/decade in February-March to 4-6%/decade in October-January) across 4 reanalyses with some coroboration from sparse in situ data.
Gebrechorkos et al. (2019) Sci. Adv.: Precipitation did not exhibit significant trends over East Africa during 1981-2016 based on high resolution networks.
Harrison et al. (2019) ERL: In well-gauged areas of sub-Saharan Africa, extreme events became wetter by 9.5% in wet areas while annual totals declined due to 3.6 fewer wet days over the period 1950-2013.
Munday & Washington (2019) J. Clim: Simulations with extreme early summer drying over southern Africa rainfall declines also contain present-day biases in rainfall and atmospheric stability
Mathew & Kumar (2019) J. Hyd: Satellite-based precipitation and reanalysis relative humidity and cloud fraction show decreases in the deep tropics and increases and the edges 1979-2016 consistent with hadley Cell expansion.
Dunn et al. (2017) ESD: sub-Clausius Clapeyron increases in water vapour observed over land, lower than CMIP5 simulatuions
Luo et al. (2018) JGR: Modelling study indicates changes in GHG forcing and anthropogenic aerosol contribute to an observed reduction in monsoon rainfall over central-northern India and the northern Indo-China Peninsula respectively, both through responses in atmospheric circulation.
Onyutha (2018) Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment: rainfall trends over Africa since 1901 confirm 1965-1990 drying over Sahel (but seasonal trends do not seem to match annual?) and increases for 1991-2015 particularly for December-May in Southern Africa and June to November for other regions.
Sahany et al. (2018) GRL: Significant decreasing trends in rainfall, wet season duration and seasonality and rainfall over parts of India but affected strongly by internal variability
Adler et al. (2017) Surv. Geophys.: Precipitation variations & Trends 1979-2014
Sukhatme & Venugopal (2015) QJRMS: waxing and waning of tropical rainfall extremes with different phases of ENSO
Gu et al. (2015) Clim. Dyn: Precipitation trends since 1979 dominated by greenhouse gas forcing and Pacific decadal internal variability
Maidment et al. (2015) GRL: spurious rainfall trends linked to changes in gauge density over time; SST patterns play a strong role in determining Africa-wide rainfall trends since 1983: increased southern Africa DJF rainfall linked to negative phase Pacifc Decadal Variability index; this is expected to reverse following the change positive PDO around 2014.
Tierney et al. (2015) Sci. Adv.: Observed decline in Horn of Africa March-May long rains coincides with global warming yet projections show increased rainfall, primarily for short September-November rains that models fail to adequately represent Chung et al. (2014) PNAS: Near global upper tropospheric moistening 1979-2005, close to that expected from the Clausius Clapeyron equation, is attributed to human causes.Feng et al. (2013) Nature Clim.: increased variability in seasonality of tropical rainfall over the 20th century
Goswami et al. (2006) Science increase in heaviest rainfall offset by moderate events over India 1951-2000
Water vapour changes
Li et al. (2024) Sci. Rep.: Warming and ENSO variability account for 86% of global interannnual variations in water vapour since 1960 in ERA5 reanalysis
Shao et al. (2024) ACP: radio occoltation water vapour drier than ERA5 and increasing 2%/decade at 850 hPa up to 3.5%/K at 300 hPa from 2007 to 2018.
Wu et al. (2024) GRL: Weakened increase in global near-surface water vapor since 1998 linked to reduced evaporation associated with circulation variability and driving more intense drought
Patel & Kuttippurath (2023) OLA Research: multi-dataset assessment of water vapour variation in space and time with increases 1980-2022 column trends ranging from 0.25 to 1 kg/m2/decade with large rise in Arctic linked to larger temperature increases
McColl & Tang (2023) J. Clim.: analytic theory of near-surface relative humidity over land shows latitudinal structure should resemble soil moisture and evaporative fraction
Douville & Willett (2023) Sci. Adv.: Projections constrained with near-surface temperature and relative humidity observations show continental drying which was masked by aerosol emissions up until the 1980s in northern latitudes
Shao et al. (2023) ACP: global water vapor trends of 3.5% per decade, 3.3% per decade, and 2.0% per decade at 300, 500, and 850hPa based on Radio Occultation data 2007-2018
Fernández-Alvarez et al. (2023) Nature Comm.: By the end of the century, moisture from the North Atlantic will increase precipitation over eastern North America in winter and autumn and on the British Isles in winter while Mediterranean moisture will increase precipitation over the southern and western portions of the Mediterranean continental area.
Willett (2023) Adv. Atmos. Sci.: increases in humid extremes since 1973, though slower than wet bulb and standard heatwave metrics
Fernandez-Duque et al. (2023) IJOC: non-significant decrease in relative humidity (-0.08%/decade) and significant increase in vapour pressure deficit (0.01 hPa/decade) over Bolivia 1950-2019
Wang et al. (2023) J. Clim.: ocean to land water vapor flux 44,680 km3/yr, increased by 1,480 km3/yr/decade (around 8%/K) during 1980-2018 with decreases during El Niño and increases during La Niña of about 3% based on more accurate calculations applied to ERA5
Baek et al. (2023) AGU Adv.: north/south displacement of jet stream explains variation in Atmospheric Rivers over last 1000 years based on simulations
Dey et al. (2023) HESS: Around two thirds of ocean and land evaporation precipitated locally while ocean to land transport of 2 million kg/s is double the land to ocean transport (net of about 30 thousand km3/year, much lower than other estimates due to much larger estimated land evaporation) based on ERA Interim and lagrangian transport calculations for positive and negative P-E; tropical Atlantic important for moisture supply to central and South America, while Amazon recycles large amounts of water
Ding et al. (2022) LNEE: column integrated water vapour increses of -7.0 to +19.0 %/decade in Antarctica and -4.6 to +12.4 %/decade in Greenland from GNSS data 1994–2020.
Yang et al. (2022) Atmos.: increased moisture convergence over Eurasia (2.6x106 kg/s/decade), Africa (2.6x106 kg/s/decade), North America (13x106 kg/s/decade), and Antarctic (0.3x106 kg/s/decade) and decreases over South America (0.6x106 kg/s/decade) in ERA5 1988-2020 with moisture convergence dominating precipitation variablity.
Douville et al. (2022) Comm. Earth & Env.: water vapour from global navigation satellite systems and other observations-based estimates used to contstrain future projections which are consistent with a 7% per K moistening of column moisture
Allan et al. (2022) JGR: global changes in water vapour 1979-2020
Huang & Huang (2022) JGR: FIR surface emission greater than atmosphere emission in cold regions due to opening of windows
Jones & Ricketts (2022) Atmos.: non-linear shifts in water vapour detected with HadISDH observed humidity changes outside most of model projections
Eiras-Barca et al. (2022) QJRMS: ERA5 adequately represents moisture transports in Atmospheric Rivers though some discrepancies over tropical forest regions based on comparison with ESA-CCI CMSAF estimates
Vázquez et al. (2022) IJOC: Influence of teleconnection patterns on global moisture transport during peak precipitation month
Shi et al. (2022) AMT: Assessing the consistency of satellite derived upper tropospheric humidity measurements
Kim et al. (2022) J. Clim: Increasing water vapor shortwave absorptivity reduces global-mean precipitation with a La Niña–like cooling over the tropical Pacific
He et al. (2022) ACP: evaluation of tropical water vapour variability in CMIP6 amip simulations
Colman & Soden (2021) Rev. Mod. Phys.: Water vapor and lapse rate feedbacks in the climate system
Wang et al. (2016) J. Clim.: column water percentage increase with warming (1988-2011) closer to Clausius Clapeyron over ocean than land and at night than in day in GPS data
Trenberth et al. (2005) Clim. Dyn.: global ocean SSM/I column water vapour increases 0.4 mm/decade or 1.3%/decade for ocean 1988-2003 that are not captured by reanalyses
Trenberth et al. (2011) J.Clim.: spurious energy and water budgets in reanalyses
Trenberth & Fasullo (2013) J.Clim.: flow of energy from ocean to land more reliable than mean budget in reanalyses
Dai et al. (2011) J. Clim.: a homogenized global, twice-daily dew point depression radiosonde dataset
Zhao et al. (2015) JGR: few reanalyses capture the observed long-term precipitable water vapour changes over China 1979–2012, primarily because they show spurious wet biases before about 2002
Wang et al. (2013) J. Atmos. Ocean. Tech.: Radiation Dry Bias Correction of Vaisala RS92 Humidity Data and Its Impacts on Historical Radiosonde Data
Simmons et al. (2010) JGR: model simulations underestimate declining relative humidity over land
Wet/dry region responses
Monerie et al. (2024) ERL: uncertain future changes in aridity due to contrasting responses in surface air temperature over the North Atlantic Ocean, interhemispheric temperature gradient, potential evapotranspiration over North and South America.
Guan et al. (2024) npj Clim. Atmos. Sci.: Greater percentage increases in total precipitation over dry land regions 1961–2018 that dominates attributed global land response to human-caused climate change
Ridgen et al. (2024) npjClim. Atmos. Sci.: later rainy-season onset and greater drought intensity in southern Madagascar since 1980, based on precipitation, soil moisture and vegetation greenness, related to poleward migration of mid-latitude jets and greater evaporative demand driven by human-caused climate change
Goffin et al. (2024) GRL: It takes 22 to 34 of the wettest days to contribute to 50% of yearly totals over Europe with the rate declining significantly over a quarter of the land area since the 1950s
Gimeno-Sotelo et al. (2024) Nature Water: conditional probability of drought given deficit in moisture transported from ocean or land is over 20% in some hotspot regions, such as central-east North America, south-east South America and east Europe
Trancoso et al. (2024) Nature Comm.: Significantly wetter or drier future for 3 billion people in future intermediate greenhouse gas scenario with drying hotspots including Mediterranean, southern Africa & South America + much wetter for Scandinavia, northern North America & central Africa.
Simpson et al. (2023) PNAS: observed decline in near surface water vapour over many arid and semi-arid continental regions is contrary to expectations from climate model simulations
Treydte et al. (2023) Nature Geosci.: intensification of atmospheric drying during the recent decades across Europe is unprecedented in a pre-industrial context based on isotope observations and attributed to human influence
Adam et al. (2023) GRL: model biases may increase the uncertainty in projections of tropical precipitation and evaporation by up to 30% and 15% respectively
Herrara et al. (2023) PLOS Clim.: Changes in magnitude and spatial patterns of precipitation minus evaporation as well as contemporaneous droughts consistent with increased water vapour content driven by higher temperatures but uncertain responses of plant water use.
Guan et al. (2023) npj Clim. Atmos. Sci.: ocean to land precipitation minus evaporation deficits (ocean to land drought) to become 40% more frequent, 54% more persistent, nearly 5 times more widespread and 6 times more severe globally at 3oC of warming under a very high greenhouse gas emissions scenario
Parry et al. (2023) ERL: Abrupt drought termination in the British–Irish Isles driven by high atmospheric vapour transport
Omay et al. (2023) Sci. Rep.: East Africa exhibits decrease in number of wet days and protracted dry spells in the 1980s, followed by large increase in wet days in the subsequent decades (2011–2020) during March-December.
Shi et al. (2023) Sci. Adv.: North Pacific water masses reveal cooling aerosol effect before 1985 and warming, water cycle intensifying greenhouse gas effect since
Chan et al. (2023) J. Hydrol.: chance of a summer month drier than the observed driest UK summer (1995) projected to increase from 9% in the present-day to 18% in a 3°C warmer world for southeast England but the chance of the driest winter does not change significantly with future warming based on large ensembles applied to hydrological models
Liang et al. (2023) Earth Future: extreme precipitation increases with warming 1960–1999 and 2060–2099 by 19%/K, three times higher than for mean precipitation (6%/K) with higher sensitivity in dry regions
Song et al. (2023) ERC: tropical rainfall annual cycle amplified due to thermodynamics and delayed due to enhanced effective atmospheric heat capacity and increased convective barrier while equatorward shift of the ITCZ and land-to-ocean precipitation shift in the rainy season linked with pattern of global warming
Li et al. (2023) J. Hyrol.: projected drying of land associated with precipitation deficit but amplified by vapour pressure deficit though partly offset by increased plant water use efficiency due to higher CO2
Baxter et al. (2023) Nature: present-day negative relationship between temperature and precipitation minus evaporation in East Africa was reversed in the cooler, less arid glacial climate based on Lake Chala sediment data
Douville & Willet (2023) Sci. Adv.: HadCRUH humidity observations constrain climate projections, indicating climate models underestimate both recent and future near surface air drying over land, even when scaled with global warming
Douville et al. (2023) GRL: Fast adjustmnent to increases CO2 increases number of dry days apart from over South Asia and Sahel with warming driving more complex regional responses
You et al. (2023) GRL: hot-wet transitions within a week occur every 6–7 years on average within warm seasons during 1956–2015, 15% more often than would be expected by chance, and increase in frequency by 22% per decade due to warming
Qing et al. (2023) Comm. Earth Env.: evaporation increases atmospheric moisture favoring transition from dry to wet in humid regions but reduced soil moisture in dry regtions enhances moisture convergence, which partly counteracts precipitation declines driven by limited evaporation
Wang et al. (2023) Clim. Dyn.: external moisture transported into arid regions has significantly decreasing trend during the 1990–2019 with decreased precipitation recycling ratio.
Huang et al. (2023) I. J. Clim.: shorter, more intense wet spells in low-latitude river basins but with more prolonged dry spells at high latitudes
Tan et al. (2023) Nature Comms.: global precipitation whiplash between wet and dry extremes to increase by 2.5 times by end of 21st century due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions
Zaitchik et al. (2023) Nature Water: review assessing whether global warming is increasing contrasts in available water or causing global aridification
Duan et al. (2023) GRL: more intense, less frequent rainfall reduces soil moisture in key aridity index/soil moisture daily regimes over tropical land when separating daily soil moisture between active rainfall and wet no rainfall regimes
Yuan et al. (2023) Science: transition toward more flash droughts over 74% of the global IPCC defined regions during the past 64 years associated with amplified anomalies of evapotranspiration and precipitation deficit caused by anthropogenic climate change
de Vries et al. (2023) ESD: detection of forced change in mean and extreme precipitation though magnitude changes are uncertain and subject to observational uncertainty
Mondal et al. (2023) Nature. Comm.: Drought hotspot regions such as Southern Europe, Northeast Brazil, Australia, and Northwest USA behave as drought hubs that synchronize regionally and with other hubs at inter-continental or even inter-hemispheric scales
Luo et al. (2022) J. Clim.: Greenhouse gases decrease P-E and reduce water vapour recycling over drylands due to more efficient export of moisture while aerosol weaken water cycle based on CESM2 simulations
Xiong et al. (2022) HESS: wet wetter, dry drier does not hold from a terrestrial water storage perspective
Chen et al. (2022) ERL: shifts between ett and dry conditions projected to increase in frequency (25%–60%) and intensity (30%–100%) by 2100 across several semi-arid regions of the globe, including Western North America and the Mediterranean, based on CMIP5 large ensembles
Ahn et al. (2022) J. Clim.: climate models overestimate forced variability and underestimate internal variability, especially in the tropical ocean and for higher-frequency variability
Zhao et al. (2022) Nature Clim.: drought-driven increase in evaporation detected in 44% of months globally
Vicente-Serano et al. (2022) Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc.: No substantial changes in global Meteorological droughts i last 120 years but increased severity of agricultural/ecological droughts related to enhanced atmospheric evaporative demand
Chen & Wang (2022) GRL: three-fifths of global land area are projected to experience an accelerated dry-to-wet transition for 2040–2100 relative to 1954–2014.
Wang et al. (2022) IJOC: mean drought intensity increased in most global land areas 1950–2020 (western United States, eastern Amazon, Mediterranean region, Africa, western Asia, and northeastern Asia) with varying contributions from precipitation and potential evaporation.
Zhou et al. (2022) Nature Comms.: Diminishing seasonality of subtropical water availability in a warmer world dominated by soil moisture–atmosphere feedbacks
Guo et al. (2022) ERL: wet seasons shortened by ~7 days in 60% of regions with onset delays of 6 days in 65% of regions and with drier dry seasons in 60% of regions over 1935 to 2014 while biannual rainfall regimes expanded at 31,000 km2/decade.
Ritchie et al. (2022) Comm. Earth Env.: Observed 0.4oC increase in temperature seasonal cycle amplitude over Amazon during last three decades implies drying and is linked with reduced evaporative fraction based on modelling
Sun & Du (2022) Clim. Dyn.: water vapor transports increase by about 0.11 Sv (19%) from tropical Atlantic to Pacific in response to the rise of the freshwater flux gradient between the two basins in 4xCO2 simulation
Xu et al. (2022) Nature Comms: 49% of tropical land experienced longer dry seasons 1983-2016 when defined as period where precipitation cannot meet the need of actual evapotranspiration
Ren et al. (2022) GRL: spatial standard deviation of global ocean has increased by 1.4% in temperature and 1.5% in salinity since 1960 due to anthropogenic forcing and this will continue to amplify with global warming
Olmedo et al. (2022) Sci. Rep.: largest positive differences between surface and near-surface salinity trends associated with decrease mixed layer depth and warming, consistent with an increased stratification of the water column due to global warming.
Ayugi et al. (2022) Nat. Hazards: precipitation reductions in arid regions and increases in highlands and lake regions of East Africa based in CMIP6 projections
Kwawuvi et al. (2022) Model. Earth Syst. Environ.: shorter projected future West Africa wet season with 16 day later onset and 22 day earlier cessation by 2050
Schumacher et al. (2022) Nature Geosci.: droughts can be spatially propagated and exacerbated through reduced downwind moisture transport and rainfall
Bevecqua et al. (2022) Nature Clim.: regionally varying mean precipitation trends determine future occurrence of compound hot–dry events over land based on 286 climate model simulations
Chan et al. (2022) HESS: Storylines for UK 2010-2012 drought
Hobeichi et al. (2022) npj ClimAtSci: Wet regions wetter, dry not drier in terms of P, ET and NDVI with ET changing the most and P strongly influenced by internal variability
Ficklin et al. (2022) Earth's Future: precipitation minus evaporative demand surplus events will become larger by 11.5% and the duration between them +5.1% longer by end of century in intermediate greenhouse gas scenarios, with the largest changes in the northern latitudes
Sohail et al. (2022) Nature: ocean salinity amplification identified in percentile temperature framework with observed warm to cold freshwater transport of 34-62 mSv that compounds the water cycle intensification effect not representd by CMIP6 models.
Singh et al. (2022) Nature Clim.: Amplification of multi-region compound droughts associated with El Niño or La Niña with warming of climate, particularly for South and North America
Ni et al. (2022) Soil Biol. Biochem.: Microbial biomass in forest soil more sensitive to soil moisture changes in dry regions
Perez Arango et al. (2022) GRL: CMIP5 simulations capture larger drought extent during El Nino warm events but the relationship diminishes with global warming
Monerie et al. (2022) J. Clim: Northern monsoons influenced by aerosol induced drying from circulation changes and thermodynamic intensification through greenhouse gas focing with distinct regional responses before and after the 1980s
Kug et al. (2022) Nature Clim.: small tropical rain belt movement with increasing CO2 but sharp southward shift into southern hemisphere as soon as CO2 begins to decrease
Barkhordarian et al. (2021) ERL: surface carbon emissions increase with vapour pressure deficit by 2 to 3 GtC mb-1 yr-1 over tropical land through soil moisture drought and reduced carbon uptake by plant growth and this sensitivity to interannual variabilty has nearly doubled over the 21st century
Slette et al. (2021) Ecosystems: more intense, less frequent but the same amount of precipitation leads to sub-surface ecosystem responses consistent with a drying environment based on realistic Rainfall Manipulations Plots experiments
Cook et al. (2021) Clim. Dyn: warming amplification over Arabia due to lack of evaporative cooling increases Somali jet strength and summer rainfall in northern Ethiopia by 35% by the end of the century
Li et al. (2021) Earth Future: Global Wet/Dry Patterns and Mechanisms Since the Last Glacial Maximum
Wang et al. (2021) Glob. Ch. Biol.: Increased precipitation increases soil Carbon input particularly in arid regimes while decreased precipitation decrease soil Carbon input particularly in wet regimes
Marvel et al. (2021) Earth's Future: coherent changes to projected water cycle seaonality in USA
Perez Arango et al. (2021) GRL: realistic tropical drought response to El Nino but reduced future sensitivity
Zhang et al. (2021) Sci. Adv.: Thermodynamic increases in precipitation variability on daily-to-multiyear time scales in a warmer world
Liang & Zhang (2021) Commun Earth Environ: Scaling of East Asian precipitation with temperature lower in summer (~3%/K) than winter (~7%/K) due to stronger moisture gradient and dynamical factors
Cui et al. (2021) GRL: vegetation response to elevated CO2 partly explains larger runoff increases in wet regions, particularly in wet seasons, than dry regions
Song et al. (2021) Nature Clim.: seasonal delay of tropical rainfall 1979–2019 due to a moister atmosphere increasing the energetic lag in response to seasonal solar forcing due to higher effective heat capacity and driven by GHG increases and aerosol decreases
Chiang et al. (2021) Nature Comms: combination of anthropogenic forcing has increased drought frequency, duration, and intensity over Americas, Africa, and Asia
Christidis et al. (2021) Clim. Bull.: wetter summer conditions in northern Europe, drier in the south in terms of rainfall with increased variablity higher aridity across continent due to warming
Monerie et al. (2021) npj ClimAtSci: Sahel rainfall changes dominated by fast responses to radiative forcing
Roth et al. (2021) Environ Evid.: terms 'wetter' and 'drier' in climate change studies should specify variable, space/time scale and base period to avoid inconsistency
Luo et al. (2021) IJOC: weakened water-cycle over the global drylands from 1980 to 2015 except over Africa
Lukovic et al. (2021) GRL: progressively delayed onset to the California rainy season since 1960s relating to delay in strengthening of the Aleutian Low with projected future shortening of season
Zhou et al. (2021) Nature Clim.: Negative soil moisture-atmospheric circulation feedback on water availability decline in drylands
Pokhrel et al. (2021) Nature Clim.: climate change reduces terrestrial water storage in many regions, particularly the Southern Hemisphere and increasing land area affected by drought from 3% during 1976-2005 to 7% in 2100
Pendergrass et al. (2020) Nature Clim.: Flash droughts present a new challenge for subseasonal-to-seasonal prediction
Yuan et al. (2020) GRL: recent trends in CMIP6 soil moisture over USA
Hirasawa et al. (2020) J. Clim: increased Sahel rainfall from 1970s to 2000s related combined effects of aerosol decreases via their effects on SST patterns and the direct effect of GHGs on atmospheric circulation
Song et al. (2020) GRL: delay in wet season over land linked to increased atmospheric heat capacity and time to generate enough sensible heat divergence
Wang et al. (2020) HESS: declining evaporation with increasing runoff and signs of reduced surface conductance relating to vegetation based on applying machine learning driven by ground-based observations from flux towers and weather stations.
Deng et al. (2020) ERL: anthropogenic forcing amplifies rainfall seasonality in global land monsoon regions
Schurer et al. (2020) ERL: Evidence from CMIP6 models and observations of greenhouse gas warming-induced strengthening contrast between wet and dry regimes
Douville et al. (2020) Clim. Dyn.: Idealised modelling highlights the importance of vegetation responses to elevated CO2 on declining land surface relative humidity in addition to thermodynamic drivers and land surface feedbacks, while the pattern of ocean warming determines regional patterns in the humidity change.
Padron et al. (2020) Nature Geosci.: Pattern of change in dry season water availability 1902-2014 attributed to human-caused climate change
Konapala et al. (2020) Nature Comms: Amplification of seasonality in water availability in CMIP5 projections
Dong et al. (2020) IJOC: less uniform distribution of precipitation on wet days in a warming climate in CMIP5 increasing CO2 experiments
Haile et al. (2020) Earth Futures: Drought area in East Africa likely to increase by 16%, 36% and 54% under RCP 2.6, 4.5 and 8.5 by end of 21st century
Yu et al. (2020) NYAS: review of observed changes in water cycle intensification on ocean salinity
DiNezio et al. (2020) Sci. Adv.: Modelling and paleoclimate evidence shows substantially increased SST and precipitation fluctuations across the Indian Ocean are a plausible response to greenhouse gas warming.
Ha et al. (2020) GRL: CMIP6 models simulate an earlier onset and later retreat of the East Asia monsoon on average with intensification of extreme rainfall events and seasonal drought conditions.
Gudoshava et al. (2020) ERL: Projections of rainfall seasonailty over the Horn of Africa show earlier March–May wet season, delayed onset and shortening of the June–September season and delayed but longer October–December season with changes increasing between 1.5oC and 2oC global warming levels.
Saint-Lu et al. (2020)O J. Clim: Targeted modelling experiments show local temperature and humidity changes, relating to plant physiology response to CO2 over land, explain much of the future responses in precipitation while drying over some land regions is driven by weakening of the atmospheric circulation and land-ocean warming contrast.
Shurer et al. (2020) ERL: human influence on increasing contrast between wet and dry tropical regimes in CMIP6 simulations
Su et al. (2020) GRL: Observed spatial extent of tropical rain belt decreased by -1%/decade (-5%/K) from 1979 to 2016, consistent with tightening of ITCZ.
Rodrigues et al. (2019) Nature: Atmospheric blocking triggered by tropical convection in Indian & Pacific oceans cause persistent anticyclones leading to severe drought over South America & marine heatwaves in South Atlantic that have intensified over 1982-2016 satellite record
Vicente-Serrano et al. (2019) WIRES Climate: Unraveling the influence of atmospheric evaporative demand on drought and its response to climate change
Greve et al. (2019) ERL: The simplified aridity index (potential evaporation/P) is a poor proxy for aridity in climate models due primarily to inadequate estimates of potatial evaporation.
Zhang & Fueglistaler (2019) GRL: Uneven increases in tropical rainfall explained by thermodynamic amplification of gradients in sub-cloud moist static that reduces area of convective activity with warming based on detailed modelling.
Funk et al. (2019) ERL: increases in wet region, wet season precipitation but limited evidence for widespread increases in wet season drought based on multiple indicators
Brogli et al. (2019) ERL: summer Mediterranean drying attributed to land-ocean warming contrast and thermodynamic changes while less certain changes in atmospheric circulation explain winter drying
Pietschnig et al. (2019) GRL: Circulation response to Africa warming drives drying of the Amazon based on idealised simulations
Lan et al. (2019) Clim. Dyn.: Thermodynamic amplification of precipitation seasonality in atmosphere-only models but opposite response in vertical motion as simulations become more stable and reanalyses (probably spuriously) more unstable with warming
Ficklin et al. (2019) GRL: Recent hydrologic intensification is dominated by increased wet day precipitation (1979-2017) while dry day water deficit increasingly contributes to future intensification
Jiang et al. (2019) Nature Clim.: An increased Congo basin June-August dry season length of 6.4–10.4 days/decade is identified from multiple satellite-derived datasets for 1988–2013 relating to reduced pre-dry season rainfall and declining soil moisture.
Wang et al. (2019) J. Clim: simulations with anthropogenic aerosol forcing produce an opposite wet get wetter response with southward ITCZ shift
Donat et al. (2019) ERL: Increased precipitation in humid regions is not robustly detected in drier regions although heavy precipitation increases in all regions
King (2019) ERL: Land surface feedbacks involving cloud, precipitation and summer drying can lead to (non-linear) accelleration of regional climate change
Kumar et al. (2019) J. Clim:root zone soil moisture anomalies can recur several or more seasons after they were initiated and increase interannual variability
Marvel et al. (2019) Nature: Changes in drought reconstructed from tree ring observations are attributed to greenhouse gas forcing in 1900-1949 and with lower confidence for 1981-2018 but not for the intervening period where aerosol forcing is substantial relative to greenhouse gas forcing.
Kendon et al. (2019) Nature Comms.: Higher resolution convection-permitting simulations project more severe changes in both wet and dry extremes over Africa.
Allen et al. (2019) Nature Clim.: continental drying driven by increased land-sea thermal contrast can worsen aerosol pollution due to reduced cloud and precipitation
Mishra et al. (2019) GRL: Using station-based observations and simulations, soil moisture drought in India since 1870 is linked with famines while the 3 most deadly droughts (all in the 19th century) are associated with El Nino and improved water resource management reduced the likelihood of drought-related famine since 1947.
Lehman et al. (2019) GRL: Applying a comprehensive statistical tool to sparse observational data, record-breaking wet months are found to be nearly 20% more frequent in recent decades due to climate change, mostly explained by northern mid-high latitudes, while more record wet months in Southeast Asia is in contrast to more record dry months in Africa.
Yang et al. (2019) J. Clim.: multiple drought indices do not display convincing wet get wet dry get drier patterns over 1982-2012
Hao et al. (2018) ERL: A significant increase in the severity of compound dry and hot extremes during the warm season was found in western US, northern South America, western Europe, Africa, western Asia, southeastern Asia, southern India, northeastern China and eastern Australia based on gridded temperature and precipitation data since 1952.
Otto et al. (2018) ERL: Combining large model ensembles with observed data a 1.5–6 times increase in probability of the 2015-17 Cape Town meteorological drought ocurring due to anthropogenic radiative forcing with this increasing trend projected to continue with further warming.
Sousa et al. (2018) ERL attribute the Cape Town drought to displacement of moisture corridors associated with the South Atlantic storm track that supressed winter precipitation
Dong et al. (2018) GRL: Modeling evidences indicate that in a warmer climate, subseasonal precipitation variability consistently increases over most of North America, due primarily to increases in atmospheric moisture but offset by dynamical changes. (Note that models underestimate observed subseasonal variance: Covey et al. (2018) GRL)
Martin (2018) GRL: increase in pluvial flooding and drought expected across many regions based on CMIP5 simulations
Lickley & Solomon (2018) ERL: based on CMIP5 simulations, 3 billion people are expected to experience 25% increases in aridity under a high emissions scenario by the end of the century.
Levine & Boos (2018) Clim. Dyn.: increasing contrast between monsoon regions and subtropical drylands explained by lifting of tropical tropopause and decrease of temperature gradient with latitude
Dunning et al. (2018) J. Clim.: Delay in wet season over West Africa/Sahel and later onset over Southern Africa associated with increasing strength of Saharan Heat Low in late boreal summer and a northward shift in the position of the tropical rain belt over August-December.
Ferguson et al. (2018) WRR: Earth system models show weaker shifts in water availability than coupled climate models
Byrne & O'Gorman (2018) PNAS: Temperature and humidity changes observed over land between 1979 and 2016 are linked to warming over neighboring oceans and understood in terms of physically based considerations that predicts equal changes in moist static energy over land and ocean and equal fractional changes in specific humidity over land and ocean.
Barkhordarian et al. (2018) GRL: drier dry season over tropical South America linked to GHG forcing and land use changes and is likely to intensify in future
Lian et al. (2018) Nature Clim.: ESM underestimate plant transpiration/total ET due to inaccurate representation of canopy light use, interception loss and root water uptake processes
Zika et al. (2018) ERL: ocean salinity pattern linked to warming-stratification effect as well as amplification of P-E patterns
Kao et al. (2018) Earth & Space Sci: circulation and cloud metrics consistent with contrasting wet/dry trends over 1988-2008
Gu & Adler (2018) J. Clim: Interdecadal variability affects precipitation intensity distribution response
Rodell et al. (2018) Nature: Trends in global fresh water 2002-2016 from GRACE
Stephens et al. (2018) GRL: dynamical feedbacks enhance tropical precipitation response to interannual variability
Benestad (2018) ERL: 7% decrease in 50oS-50oN TRMM daily precipitation area 1998-2016
Mankin et al. (2018) GRL: Simulated greening & drying for 42% of global vegetated land linked to warming, increased mean & extreme precipitation & CO2 fertilisation effects
Zhang et al. (2018) Biogeosci: number of rainy days & wet season timing important for favourable vegetation growth in the semiarid Sahel
Kao et al. (2018) J Clim.: decreasing trend in recycling rate captured due to increasing water vapour but CMIP5 precipitation simulation poor
Wang et al. (2018) ERL: Satellite and in situ observations of precipitation increases over the December to May tropical Amazonian wet season (180 to 720 mm from 1979 to 2015) is linked to warming oceans.
Pendergrass et al. (2017) Nature Clim.: Precipitation variability increases in a warmer climate
Murray-Tortarolo et al. (2017) PLOS: dry-season precipitation increased steadily, while wet-season precipitation remained constant over period 1950-2009 leading to reduced seasonality at a global scale, in contrast to more recent period; dry-season precipitation is a key driver of vegetation productivity at the global scale.
Chen et al. (2017) HESS: distribution of water resources has become increasingly uneven across 291 Chinese catchments from 1956 to 2000
Bonfils et al. (2017) J. Clim: aridity increases in ~70% of regions where aridity sensitive to ENSO, but only 40% when aridity indicator for soil moisture used due to physiological effects for enhanced CO2
Feng & Zhang (2017) Sci. Rep.: 30% of global land has experienced robust moisture trends, 22% drier, 7% wetter; 52% of the satellite soil moisture drying trend occurred in arid regions, 48% of the wetter trend occurred in the humid regions
Dai et al. (2017) Clim. Dyn.: more intense warm season rainstorms have moisture removal rate increases =7%/K local warming so longer moisture replenishing time from advection/evaporation lead to longer dry spells & reduced precipitation frequency
Lambert et al. (2017) J Clim: Land-Ocean Shifts in Tropical Precipitation Linked to Surface Temperature and Humidity Change
Huang et al. (2017) Nature Clim.: dry regions warm up more than humid regions
Humphrey et al. (2017) GRL: GRACE measurements used to reconstruct terrestrial water storage since 1985
Zhou and Lau (2017): consistent responses in mean and extreme precipitation that contrast markedly between dry/wet regions
Polson and Hegerl (2016): differences in model climatologies and of the wet and dry regions obscures clear amplification of precipitation contrast between wet and dry regimes
Polson et al. (2016): long island records confirm simulated tendencies for wet oceans regions to become wetter and low rainfall ocean regions drier with tropical warming
Skliris et al. (2016): amplification of ocean salinity patterns below Clausius Clapeyron rate consistent with climate models
He & Soden (2016) Nature Clim.: sub-tropical precipitation decline driven by fast adjustments to CO2 and uneven warming patterns & may already have realized most of the precipitation decline that would result from current radiative forcing levels
Herrera et al. (2018) GRL: Enhanced evaporative demand due to anthropogenic warming contributed 15–17% of 2013-2015 Pan-Caribbean drought severity
Stephens et al. (2018) GRL: Pan evaporation decreases 1970s to mid-2000s previously attributed to decreasing wind speeds actually reversed in the early 1990s due to increasing vapor pressure deficit relating to warming
Byrne & O'Gorman (2016): greater warming over land combined with enhanced evapotranspiration explains reductions in relative humidity, further amplified by vegetation responses
Milly & Dunne (2016) Nature Clim.: historical and future tendencies towards continental drying may be considerably weaker and less extensive than previously thought due to neglect of stomatal conductance reductions in response to rising CO2.
Kumar et al. (2016) WRR: terrestrial hydrological sensitivity is 3 times greater in regions where the hydrological cycle is energy limited rather than water limited
Berg et al. (2016) Nature Clim.: Land-atmosphere feedbacks amplify aridity increase over land under global warming
Murray-Tortarolo et al. (2016) GRL: more intense dry seasons in arid regions 1989-2005 and linked to decreased NPP
Rodrigez-Fonseca et al. (2016) J. Clim: review on role of SST in West Africa droughts
Byrne & O'Gorman (2015): dry get drier does not apply over land, drying responses can relate to temperature and moisture gradients
Scheff and Frierson (2015) J. Clim.: increased subtropical aridity from increased PET due to increased net radiation but large discrepancies between models
Kumar et al. (2015) GRL: trends in wet/dry region responses strongly influenced by dynamics but signals of amplification in wettest wet seaons and driest dry season in models (doi:10.1002/2015GL066858)
Greve & Seneviratne (2015) GRL: changes in P-E and P-PET (approximated from net radiation) suggest few regions of increased aridity
Chadwick et al. (2015) Nature Clim.: despite uncertainty in location of future rainfall shifts, climate models consistently project large rainfall changes will occur for considerable proportions of tropical land over 21st century.
Trenberth et al. (2014) Nature Clim.: Global warming and changes in drought
[perspective]Kumar et al. (2014) Earth's Future: projections of water availability (P-E/Pmean, useful as a metric of flood and drought) indicate increased contrast between wet and dry season implying less reliable water availability in the future. AW increases in the wet season due to increased P but decreases in the dry season because ET increases faster than P. Soil drying could lead to a change in regime from energy limited to water limited.
Allan (2014) Nature Geosci.: local changes in precipitation are dominated by spatial movement in the atmospheric circulation.
Greve et al. (2014) Nature Geosci.: no evidence for wet regions get wetter and dry regions drier since 1950s; amplification of P-E patterns are not a good contraint on changes in aridity over land which is better assessed through a Budyko energy balance framework.
Roderick et al. (2014) HESS: projections in grid point P-E over land conform to Budyko framework relating to energy balance; surface E is strongly determined by reduced surface net longwave radiative cooling yet locally P-E is primarily determined by changes in P (which are sensitive to changes in circulation).
Fu and Feng (2014) JGR: decrease in P/PET (drier terrestrial climate) by ~3.4%/K
Chadwick et al. (2013) J. Clim.: wet get wetter response negated by slowing tropical circulation, spatial patterns of precipitation change dominated by shifts in convergence zones with changes in relative humidity becoming important over land
Liu & Allan (2013) ERL: increases in P and P-E at high percentiles and decreases at low percentiles while decadal internal variability of climate is important in determining past observed changes over land.
Chou et al. (2013) Nature Geosci.: increase in the range between wet and dry season precipitation
Marvel & Bonfils (2013) PNAS: simultaneous contribution of thermodynamic and dynamic components of global precipitation
Lintner et al. (2012) JGR: increase in contrast between very wet and dry monthly precipitation totals with climate change but signal is clouded by internal variability
Durack et al. (2012) Science: ocean salinity patterns express an identifiable fingerprint of P-E amplification
Nicholson et al. (2017) Rev. Geophys Climate and climatic variability of rainfall over eastern Africa
Held & Soden (2006) J. Clim. major robust responses of the hydrological cycle depend on low-altityde water vapour
Trenberth & Shea (2005) GRL: cause and effect between temperature and precipitation is ambiguous over land since warmer, moisture conditions can be associated with more precipitation yet drier, cloud-free conditions can heat up tropical land
Rainfall extremes
Guendelman et al. (2024) GRL: storm resolving model simulates lower increase in precipitation extremes at intermediate percentiles and drying at lower percentiles, most pronounced over mid-latitude land
Nellikkattil et al. (2024) Commun. Earth Environ. (2023): Strengthening of Atmospheric Rivers around 6-7%/oC but maximum precipitation intensity resemble saturated environments like tropical cyclone cores based on high resolution model simulations
Yan et al. (2024) GRL: Urbanization further intensifies short-duration rainfall extremes with warming by 20%/o for less than 3 hour events with 2 year return periods based on urban and rural sub reginos of the Greater Bay Area of China
Zhang et al. (2024) JGR: increased Atmospheric River frequency, intensity, duration, and spatial extent and decreased landfall intervals with shift toward higher latitudes in both hemispheres notable increases in frequency and contribution to precipitation over Greenland
Grundemann et al. (2023) GRL: seasonal clustering of extreme precipitation increased in Africa while becoming more spread out in Asia with slight increases over North America and Australia based on ERA5 1959-2021
Kotz et al. (2023) J. Clim.: climate models underestimate intensification of heavy rainfall events with warming
Rodell & Li (2023) Nature Water: Intensity of extreme hydroclimatic events strongly correlated with global mean temperature based on GRACE satellite data suggesting that continued warming of the planet will cause more frequent, more severe, longer and/or larger droughts and pluvials
Garner (2023) Sci. Rep.: tropical cyclone intensification rates increased by nearly 30$ from 1971-1990 to 2001-2020
Rentschler et al. (2023) Nature: Global evidence of rapid urban growth in flood zones since 1985
Shan et al. (2023) Nature:intense tropical cyclones shifting earlier by 3.7 and 3.2 days per decade in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres since the 1980s due to greenhouse gas forcing.
Ham et al. (2023) Nature: Anthropogenic fingerprints in daily precipitation revealed by deep learning
Ghanghas et al. (2023) GRL: rising temperature causes shrinking of precipitation extent in tropics, but an expansion of precipitation extent in arid regions with storms becoming more intense and spatially concentrated.
Namibi & Steinschneider (2003) GRL: precipitation increases with warming larger for Atmospheric Rivers (5.7%/K) than non ARs (2.4%/K), in California, especially for hourly event maxima, due to greater uplift and a stronger increase in specific humidity aloft
Whitford et al. (2023) Weather & Clim. Ext.: A gauge-based sub-daily extreme rainfall climatology for western Europe
Saley & Salack (2023) Atmos.: Increases in heavy rainfall events in Sahel & West Africa in observations 1982-2016 and future projections
Huang et al. (2023) Nature Water: Thermodynamically enhancement of precipitation extremes due to warming from greenhouse gases partially offset by aerosol cooling
Diodato et al. (2023) Sci.Rep.: flood reconstruction for northwestern Italy since 1582 1787 and 1967, with only occasional severe floods comparable to present-day disasters occurring before 1787 and an increasing intensification after 1967
Ombadi et al. (2023) Nature: large increase in rainfall extremes in high-elevation regions of Northern Hemisphere by 15% per degree Celsius of warming, mainly due to shift from snow to rain
Stansfield & Reed (2023) npjClimAtSci: tropical cyclone precipitation scales close to Clausius Clapeyron rate (5%/K), slightly higher than inferred from interannual covariability (6-10%/K).
Wang et al. (2023) Nature Comm.: Eddy resolving models needed to simulate extreme atmospheric rivers which show global doubling of occurrence, integrated water vapor transport and precipitation and a more concentrated tripling for the landfalling events by the end of the 21st century
McErlich et al. (2023) Nature Geosci.: where it rains more often, it also rains harder
Li et al. (2023) ERL: scaling of precipitation extremes with temperature sensitive to constrasting spatial and seasonal influences
Zhou et al. (2023) GRL: Atmospheric Rivers preominantly windy type in mid-latitudes and wet type in subtropics
Tian et al. (2023) ERL: decline in extreme precipitation with highest temperatures over many tropical land regions not seen for dewpoint temperature and linked with various factors e.g. precipitation duration, total column water vapour, convective available potential energy, and relative humidity based on ERA5 data
Bloomfield et al. (2023) Weather Clim. Extr.: Co-occuring strong wind & precipitation events over Great Britain peak for 10 day periods with maximum wind & river flows correlation over 40–60 days due to catchment soil saturation timescale
Chan et al. (2023) Comm. Earth Env.: contrasting end of century changes convective storm characteristics in two convection permitting models but intensification of largest storms is robust
Bador & Alexander (2022) Earth Future: annual maximum intensity increases where mean precipitation increases and decreases where the mean decreases where CMIP6 models show high agreement
Roca et al. (2022) GRL: scaling of 1x1 degree extreme precipitation dominated by fine-scale rain fraction within the grid box, not intensity
Brunner & Dougherty (2022) WRR: regional floods associated more with frontal mesoscale convective systems in summer, nonfrontal/extratropical cyclone-related storms in winter and spring, and tropical cyclones in autumn, particularly for wet antecedent conditions through can be associated with dry conditions and snowmelt locally
Yin et al. (2022) Science China Earth Sci.: more spatially concentrated precipitation events with increasing intensity but decreased duration over most areas of the globe
Tramblay et al. (2022) Sci. Rep.: excess rains on saturated soils in Western Africa, and long rains for catchments in Northern and Southern Africa dominate flood generation mechanisms
Mazzoleni et al. (2022) Comm. Earth Env.: changes in annual maximum flood events strongly influenced by human factors such as urbanisation based on 106 large river basins
Huang et al. (2022) IJOC: Consecutive extreme precipitation frequency increased faster in dry regions (9.7%/decade) compared with wet regions (1.1%/decade) over China in last 60 years.
Matte et al. (2022) GRL: unprecedented precipitation intensity reached in pseudo global warming experiment applied to convective event over Copenhagen
Gimeno et al. (2022) Wires Water: review on precipitation extremes covering definition of extreme events, changes in their distribution and intensity both globally and regionally, the dependence on large-scale phenomena including the role of moisture transport, and changes in their behavior due to anthropogenic pressures
Shearer et al. (2022) Sci. Rep.: Increases in rainfall rates boosted mean precipitation of global tropical cyclones by 7–15%/year, with the largest increases in the North Atlantic, South Indian, and South Pacific basins
Mo (2022) BAMS: moist tongues as a historical prequel to Atmospheric River concept
Nanditha & Mishra (2022) WRR: Multiday precipitation, a proxy to heavy precipitation on wet soil conditions, was found as the predominant flood driver in the observed and projected future climate over India
Reid et al. (2022) J. Clim.strong relationship between ARs and extreme rainfall in the agriculturally significant Murray–Daring basin region of Australia with sub-tropical ARs sensitive to wind speed differences and extra-tropical more sensitive to moisture amount
Ali et al. (2022) GRL: less accurate data atrtifically reduces scaling of extreme precipitation to dew point temperature based on data at 3000 locations across USA
Insua-Costa et al. (2022) ERL: half of water accumulated in recent Germany and Belgium floods supplied by vegetation with North American forests contributing more than Mediterranean and North Sea
John et al. (2022) Weather & Clim. Extr.: CMIP6 projected increase in 20yr daily extremes consistent with 7% per K global warming over 83% of the global land but more ensemble members needed to account for internal variability
Utsumi & Kim (2022) Nature Clim.: Increasing occurrence of intense tropical cyclone rainfall over coastal East Asia and decreases in the southern West North Pacific linked to anthropogenic forcing
Purr et al. (2022) QJRMS: super-thermodynamic scaling of convective cell precipitation caused by an increase of convective available potential energy with dew point temperature based on observations over Germany
Thackeray et al. (2022) Nature Clim.: historical global precipitation extremes will occur roughly 24-40% more often than present by 2100 under a medium-emissions pathway based on emergent constraints
Khouakhi et al. (2022) Int. J. Clim.: Atmospheric rivers associated with extreme rainfall over Morocco
Wang & Sun (2022) GRL: Increase of extreme precipitation intensity with temperature close to 7%/K when controlled for humidity saturation deficit based on 3-hourly satellite-based data and simulations
Chadwick et al. (2022) J. Clim: Dry static energy as well as moisture determine scaling of daily precipitation
Chagnaud et al. (2022) ERL: increased intensity of daily rainfall by around 5%/decade 1983-2015 in West Sahel
Visser et al. (2021) J.Clim.: decline in scaling of extreme precipitation with temperature ("the hook") explained by decreased duration not rate with scaling for short duration at or above thermodynamic expectation
Zhang et al. (2021) J.Clim.: Thermodynamic increases in AR extent and strength with a poleward shift also influenced by dynamics with latent heat feedbacks of secondary importance based on idealised experiments
Insua-Costa et al. (2022) npj ClimAtSci: increases in non-local moisture transport key to explaining intensification of Mediterranean precipitation events based on modelling
Wilhelm et al. (2022) Nature Geosci.: Decreased flood frequency with regional warming in European Alps for past climates but increases for largest events & smaller catchments and applicability to global warming cautioned
Kent et al. (2022) ERL: high resolution model experiments show 1% chance of unprecedented UK precipitation exftremes in present day climate with events linked to southward displacement of jet stream
Papritz et al. (2021) JAS: moisture uptake by cyclone strongest in development phase over Gulf Stream with transport less than cyclone transort with preconditioning of moisture in cold sector important
Kamae et al. (2021) GRL: more frequent/intense ARs over East Asia with global warming
Dykstra & Dzwonkowski (2021) WRR: rainfall intensification decreases discharge lag time and increases likelihood of compounding with coastal storm surge floods
Traxl et al. (2021) Nature Comm.: tropical cyclone rainfall temperature scaling sensitive to pre-cyclone cooling and circulation
Dai & Nie (2021) GRL: interannual variation in extreme precipitation dominated by dynamics, not thermodynamics which dominates climate change response
Ma et al. (2021) GRL: Atmospheric river response to sea ice loss leads to compensating dynamic response to thermodynamic intensification poleward of 60N
Baek & Lora (2021) Nature Clim.: Counterbalancing influencing of GHGs and aerosols on Atmospheric Rivers over historical period (1920-2005) but GHG dominating intensification projected for future with substantial role regionally for dynamical changes in storm track location
Thandlam et al. (2021) Th. App. Clim.: increasing intensity of ARs in N. Atlantic 2009–2018 with large decadal variability and 5o poleward shift in landfall 1999–2018
Lavers et al. (2021) Comm. Earth Env.: Improved forecasts of atmospheric rivers through systematic reconnaissance, better modelling, and insights on conversion of rain to flooding
Madakumbura et al. (2021) Nat. Comms: Anthropogenic influence on extreme precipitation over global land areas seen in multiple observational datasets using AI
Kahraman et al. (2021) GRL: slower storm movement projected to contribute to increased precipitation extremes across Europe
Tasarek et al. (2021) npl Clim. Atm. Sci.: contrasting trends in CAPE in ERA5 and rawinsonde observations since 1979
De Meyer & Roca (2021) J. Met. Soc. Japan: Clausius Clapeyron scaling of extreme daily precipitation observed by microwave satellite observations for SSTs of 300-302.5 K covering 60% of the tropical ocean
Sarkar & Maity (2021) Sci. Rep.: increased in precipitation exremes following climate shift of 1970s with increases in northern hemisphere associated with increased pole-ward heat and moisture transport as a result of Arctic Amplification
Moustakis et al. (2021) Comm. Earth & Env.: Local features of atmospheric convection, larger-scale dynamics and orography affect dependence of extreme rainfall on surface temperature.
Hatsuzuka et al. (2021) npjClimAtSci: above Clausius Clapeyron increase in precipitation extremes from atmospheric rivers over Japan during 1994–2018
Bevacqua et al. (2021) GRL: spatial footprint of total wintertime precipitation extremes projected to widen by ~3 million km2 for 28-78oN region
Medeiros et al. (2021) npjClimAtSci: cloud-radiative feedbacks enhance organization of convection and extreme precipitation over tropical oceans
Fowler et al. (2021) Nature Rev.: Anthropogenic intensification of short-duration rainfall extremes
Ali et al. (2021) GRL: Hourly extreme precipitation follows of at least 6.5%/K at the regional scale, often higher at the gauge-level and compared to daily extremes
De Luca et al. (2020) ESSD: Concurrent wet and dry hydrological extremes and transitions at the global scale
Griffith et al. (2020) Hyd. Processes: Atmospheric river orientation determines flood occurrence
Tabari et al. (2020) ERL: CMIP5/CMIP6 attribution of more extreme precipitation over Europe to greenhouse gas increases: anthropogenic contribution to anomalous extreme precipitation increases from 8% in Southern Europe to 41% in northern Europe, dominated by greenhouse gas warming that is offset by aerosol influence
Gonzales et al. (2020) GRL: windy ARs are also associated with greater daily precipitation totals than moisture moist ARs, with the difference widening at higher IVT, notably over mountainous regions
Tabari et al. (2020) Sci. Rep.: future intensification of extreme precipitation and flood events over all climate regions which increases as water availability increases from dry to wet regions
Kim et al. (2020) IJOC: east Asia ARs peak in summer
Do et al. (2020) GRL: Low correlation (less than 0.2) between changes in precipitation extremes and high streamflow over N America
Zavadoff & Kirtman (2020) J. Clim: AR events related to anticyclonic Rossby wave breaking (RWB) and jet-stream latitude which determines regions experiencing landfall
Roca et al. (2020) Nature Comm.: Long-lived, organised mesoscale convective systems contribute disproportionally to extreme tropical precipitation.
Ghausi & Ghosh (2020) GRL: Scaling of 3 hourly rainfall with temperature at CC or above over S Asia leading to positive extreme streamflow-temperature scaling in small catchments
Singh et al. (2020) ERL: More pronounced change in precipitation extremes over urban than rural regions of the US 1948 to 2006.
Da Silva et al. (2020) ACP: aerosol indirect effects explain sub-Clausius Clapeyron precipitation scaling with temperature
Breugem et al. (2020) Earth Sci. Rev.: Meteorological aspects of heavy precipitation in relation to floods (review)
Welty et al. (2020) GRL:: Afternoon rainfall is favoured over warmer soils that are moister for low moisture convergence or dry for high moisture convergence regimes based on satellite data for northern hemisphere land
Chen et al. (2020) J. Clim: Modelling evidence of delayed but stronger convection over land in a warmer world as low level moisture increases CAPE but reduced relative humidity increases lifting condensation level and convective inhibition.
Hodnebrog et al. (2019) ERL: sub-daily and sub-hourly precipitation extremes do not increase much above 7%/K in convection permitting experiments for the European summer season
Hodnebrog et al. (2019) ERL: high resolution modelling indicates thermodynamic intensification of sub-daily extreme rainfall
Markonis et al. (2019) JGR: More intense but not less frequent precipitation over land 1979-2016
Kodama et al. (2019) GRL: Clausius Clapeyron scaling of extra-tropical cyclone precipitation in high resolution simulations
Myhre et al. (2019) Sci. Adv.: Increases in rainfall above a fixed intensity threshold appear to be determined mostly by increases in frequency [BUT this merely reflects the less severe precipitation events intensifying above the threshold and intensification of heavy rainfall in weather events is the dominant process.]
Touma et al. (2019) GRL: Heavy precipitation (upper quartile intensity for days of more than 50mm/day precipitation over land) has significantly increased between 1900-1957 and 1958-2017 for major hurricanes that have weakened to tropical storms.
Chiverrell et al. (2019) ESPL: For a large catchment in NW England the cluster of extreme floods (top 1%) from 1990 to present is without precedent in a 558-year palaeo-record.
Pendergrass et al. (2019) GRL: non-linear extreme precipitation response in CESM1 explained by increase in the large-scale fraction and strengthening convergence into storms
Pfleiderer et al. (2019) Nature Clim.: The average likelihood of seven consecutive days of precipitation more than 5mm/day increases by 15-37% for the mid-latitudes in a 2oC warmer world relative to 1850-1900 and is most pronounced in northern Eurasia.
Wasko & Nathan (2019) Clim. Ch.: Complex links between local precipitation characteristics and temperature, particulrly for shorter timescales
Norris et al. (2019) J.Clim: Large-ensemble simulations project that extreme present day precipitation accumulations (100-year recurrence) become about twice as frequent by the 2070s over land regions due to increased intensities (not durations) explained by stronger moisture transport for mid-latituide events and the combination of moisture and circulation changes over tropical regions.
Chua et al. (2019) GRL: Heating from greenhouse gases or absorbing aerosol reduce weak precipitation but extreme precipitation is maintained by cancellation between moistening and reducing updrafts.
Nikumbh et al. (2019) Sci. Rep.: Increasing spatial extent of precipitation events over India since the 1980s is linked to flooding and large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns
Papalexiou & Montanari (2019) WRR: For global daily gauge observations 1964-2013, around 2/3 of stations show increasing frequency of extreme events while more stations show an increase in magnitude than a decrease
Demaria et al. (2019) GRL: long gauge records in south west USA show intensification of sub-daily rainfall extremes since 1970s
Du et al. (2019) GRL: relative increases in persistent rainfall extremes of varying length are less than for daily extremes and vary markedly across observations and simulations
Li et al. (2019) GRL: amplification of most extreme rainfall explained by dynamical intensification based on high resolution modelling over N. America
Gonzales et al. (2019) JGR: observed recent warming of ARs has implications for water storage, resources and impacts
Meredith et al. (2019) GRL: high resolution modelling experiments indicate scaling of sub-daily extreme summertime precipitation with warming varies over the diurnal cycle with heaviest rainfall shifting from the late afternoon to overnight
Kamae et al. (2019) ERL: 1% increase in frequency of atmospheric rivers affecting east Asia per oC of warming but this is strongly affected by the evolving SST pattern
Keellings & Hernández Ayala (2019) GRL: The probability of precipitation magnitudes recorded within a 2017 tropical cyclone were made more than 4 times greater due to human caused climate change based on statistical analysis of observations.
Dacre et al. (2019) J. Hydromet: Applying a cyclone centred framework, the atmospheric river is identified as a remnant of storm moisture ingested ahead of the cyclone.
Burdanowitz et al. 2019 ACP: hourly ship-based rainfall shows super-Clausius Clapeyron scaling of 99th percentile extremes (above 8.5%/K) with no reduction in duration at higher temperatures. Scaling is weaker in ERA5 (4.5%/K) with a local minimum at 26oC explained by local subsidence.
Zhang et al. (2019) GRL: Enhanced latent heat release through atmospheric rivers can invigorate the parent storm
Boers et al. (2019) Nature: global-scale atmospheric dynamics involving Rossby waves generate coinciding remote linkages of extreme-rainfall events.
Weller et al. (2019) GRL: more accurate predictions of future precipitation require representation of the relatively short-lived convergence lines in the tropics
Curry et al. (2019) GRL: A transition from snow melt to extreme precipitation events is projected to alter the timing and increase the severity of river flooding over western Canada based on simulations.
Roderick et al. (2019) GRL: Apparent decline in precipitation extreme scaling with warming at high temperatures reflects the additional surface heating in dry meteorological conditions rather than a physical limit based on the relationship of precipitation with column water vapour from satellite data.
Norris et al. (2019) J Clim.: in a large ensemble, thermodynamics is found to determine an approximate 7%/K increase in extreme precipitation intensity in mid-high latitudes while dynamical changes suppresses this rate in subtropics and amplifies it to a 10-15%/K increase in the deep tropics
Feng et al. (2018) QJRMS: High resolution (16km) simulations depict increases in heavy and light precipitation at the expense of moderate precipitation although precise response varies by region.
Ali et al. (2018) GRL: most tropical locations show a positive (median 5.2%/K) scaling with surface air temperature and 96% of global locations exhibit positive (median 6.1%/K) scaling with dew point temperature.
Hawcroft et al. (2018) ERL: Despite uncertainty in how storm track location will change in a warming climate, extreme precipitation within intense extra tropical cyclones are projected to intensify over Europe and north America in line with expectations from thermodynamics.
Pendergrass & Knutti (2018) GRL: half of annual rainfall falls in 12 wettest days as a median across present day observations and this halves by end of century in high emissions simulations when adjusted to reflect observed climate
Scoccimarro et al. (2018) Ann. Geophys.: anomalous high pressure linked to large moisture transport events linked to Atmospheric Rivers over NW Europe
Tandon et al. (2018) GRL: Increasing horizontal scale and weakening of extreme ascent in summer across Northern Hemisphere, relating to stability changes, contributes to reduced precipitation intensity over widespread regions that conteracts effects of increased moisture with warming
Marelle et al. (2018) GRL: future warming could shift extremes later in the year especially at higher latitudes
Wasko et al. (2018) ERL: dew point temperature is a better measure of precipitation changes due to increases in atmospheric moisture than dry-bulb temperature (responses generally in range 5-15%/K)
Nie et al. (2018) PNAS: enhanced latentent heating amplifies storms explaining super Clausius Clapeyron precipitation responses
Lin et al. (2018) JGR: larger precipitation extreme response to aerosol than greenhouse gas forcing since greenhouse gases suppress precipitation through their direct effect on the atmospheric energy budget but the discrepancy becomes negligible for more severe extremes
Guerreiro et al. (2018) Nature Clim.: increases in rainfall with warming consistent with Clausius Clapeyron scaling but within range of natural variability for daily extremes while hourly extremes increase around double this rate, above the range of natural variability
Ali & Mishra (2018) GRL: 3 hourly 100-year precipitation maxima projected to increase almost twice as fast as daily precipitation maxima under warming; simulations underestimate 3 hourly precipitation extremes
Lin et al. (2018) GRL: simulations representing aerosol-cloud interaction capture rapid changes in extreme precipitation over India and China 1979-2005
Bador et al. (2018) J. Clim: projected increase in precipitation extremes strongest in wet regions and seasons and simulated responses dependent on physics shared across models
Mahoney et al. (2018) J. Clim: increased precipitation (but moire as rain than snow) over western USA from ARs in future relating to both dynamical and thermodynamical factors
Baker et al. (2018) Nature Clim.: direct impact of higher CO2 concentrations on climate extremes so impacts at 1.5o warming depend also on emissions pathways
Kossin (2018) Nature: slowing tropical circulation may be reducing tropical cyclone speed with implications for extreme rainfall accumulations [see also responses to criticism in Kossin (2019) Nature]
Pendegrass (2018) Science: perspective on how scaling of heavy precipitation depends on definition of extreme
Espinoza et al. (2018) GRL: Atmospheric rivers (ARs) ~10% fewer, ~25% longer, ~25% wider globally with stronger moisture transport under RCP8.5 future scenario; ~50-60% more frequent & transport ~20% stronger in midlatitudes where most frequent.
Tandon et al. (2018) GRL: subtropical changes in extreme precipitation linked to changes in horizontal scale of ascending anomalies and vertical stability
Formayer & Fritz (2017) IJOC: Observational evidence of thermodynamic scaling in hourly precipitation extremes
Roxy et al. (2017) Nature Comms: threefold rise in widespread extreme rain events over central India 1950–2015 relating to increasing moist, monsoon westerly events preceded by high Arabian SST.
Brown et al. (2017) GRL: increased daily to decadal variability in rainfall explained by thermodynamic factors
Paltan et al. (2017) GRL: Atmospheric Rivers contribute 22% of total global runoff, increase the occurrence of floods by 80%, whilst absence may increase the occurrence of hydrological droughts events by up to 90%
Karmakar et al. (2017) Sci. Rep.: extreme rainfall events in monsoon break cycle reduces subsequent active phase, reducing intraseasonal variability
Wasko & Sharma (2017) Sci. Rep.: only in the most extreme cases, for smaller catchments, do increases in precipitation at higher temperatures correspond to increases in streamflow
Sillmann/PDRMIP (2017) GRL: changes in extreme precipitation scale with surface temperature and don't depend on the forcing mechanism
Borodina et al. (2017) GRL: Observations indicate climate projections may underestimate heavy rainfall response to global warming
Dwyre & O'Gorman (2017) GRL: more intense mid-latitude rainfall extremes with warming but shorter duration due to stronger westerly winds
Pfahl et al. (2017) Nature Clim.: uncertainty & spatial pattern of precipitation extremes response to warming dominated by dynamical changes
Taylor et al. (2017) Nature: Heating of Sahara by rising greenhouse gases intensifying Sahelian storms
Bhattacharya et al. (2017) GRL: large-scale dynamics and convective scale changes alter precipitation extremes scaling with warming and are sensitive to convection schemes in aqua planet experiments
Wang et al. (2017) Nature Clim.: decline in precipitation extremes at high temperature in present day climate does not imply a potential upper limit for future precipitation extremes
Waliser & Guan (2017) Nature Geosci.: Landfalling atmospheric rivers associated with 40-75% of extreme wind and precipitation events over 40% of the world's coastlines.
Neelin et al. (2017) PNAS: natural threshold for extreme precipitation increases with warming leading to 100s-1000% increases in extreme accumulations with 3oC global warming by 2100
Bao et al. (2017) Nature Clim.: accounting for local cooling & synoptic conditions during storms, super-Clausius Clapeyron scaling of future precipitation extremes found
Loriaux et al. (2017) J. Clim: large eddy simulations show stability controls precipitation intensity, moisture convergence controls area fraction and relative humidity increases intensity while slightly decreasing area fraction
Fischer & Knutti (2016) Nature Clim.: reviewing progress in evaluation of heavy precipitation increases with warming
Gariano & Guzetti (2016) Earth. Sci. Rev.: An increasing frequency and intensity of severe rainfall events is expected to increase in the number of people exposed to landslide risk although this is subject to substantial model-related and scenario uncertainty
Barbero et al. (2016) GRL: precipitation intensification with warming in USA more detectable for daily than hourly observations
Lavers et al. (2016) GRL: water vapour transport skillful predictor of extreme rainfall over wester Europe in positive NAO phase at forecast day 10 but not in negative phases or at shorter lead times
Wasko et al. (2016) GRL: using satellite data to assess scaling in extreme precipitation with temperature
Pendergrass et al. (2016) GRL: diversity in extreme precipitation response to warming linked to convective organisation
Moseley et al. (2016) Nature Geosci.: Intensification of convective extremes driven by cloud-cloud interaction
Chan et al. (2016) ERL: characteristics of summer sub-hourly rainfall over southern UK in high-resolution convective permitting model
Lin et al. (2016) GRL: declining aerosol adds to CO2 warming and precipitation intensification
Ramos et al. (2016) GRL: doubling of strong Atmospheric Rivers reaching Europe from 1980-2005 to 2074-2099 in RCP8.5 due to increased temperature and moisture
Vittal et al. (2016) SREP: Indian summer monsoon rainfall extremes not determined by temperature (dynamics dominate but cause and effect may be ambiguous as low rainfall days may be associated with warmer conditions)
Froidevaux & Martius (2016) QJRMS: exceptional moisture transport and Swiss flooding
Giorgi et al. (2016) Enhanced summer convective rainfall at Alpine high elevations in response to climate warming, Nature Geoscience, doi:10.1038/ngeo2761
Wasko et al. (2016) Reduced spatial extent of extreme storms at higher temperatures, GRL, doi:10.1002/2016GL068509
Zhou et al. (2016) GRL: Previous analysis based on the "interannual difference method" by Liu et al. (2009) overestimate scaling of heavy rainfall to global warming
Donat et al. (2016) Nature Clim.: more extreme rainfall in wet and dry regions when defined for 1950-1980 although this time period is unusual (large aerosol forcing) and changes in spatial pattern of wet/dry regions may be important [See critique by Sippel et al. (2016) HESS]
Chan et al. (2016) Downturn in scaling of UK extreme rainfall with temperature for future hottest days, Nature Geoscience, 9, 24-28, doi:10.1038/ngeo2596
Hamada et al. (2015) Nature Comm.: most intense rainfall events are associated with less intense convection based on 11-years of satellite data
Blenkinsop et al. (2015) Temperature influences on intense UK hourly precipitation and dependency on large-scale circulation, ERL, 10, 054021 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/10/5/054021
Molnar et al. (2015) Storm type effects on super Clausius-Clapeyron scaling of intense rainstorm properties with air temperature, HESS, 19, 1753-1766, doi:10.5194/hess-19-1753-2015
O'Gorman, P. (2015) Precipitation Extremes Under Climate Change, Curr Clim Change Rep, doi:10.1007/s40641-015-0009-3
Scoccimarro et al. (2015) Projected Changes in Intense Precipitation over Europe at the Daily and Subdaily Time Scales, J. Climate, doi: 10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00779.1
Zheng et al. (2015) Opposing local precipitation extremes, Nature Clim. Ch., 5, 389-390, doi:10.1038/nclimate2579
Taylor (2015) GRL: Convective initiation over Europe is favored on downwind side of dry surfaces, close to wetter areas, especially following dry periods and under light winds while the detected signal is consistent with but weaker than for the Sahel.
Singh & O'Gorman (2014) GRL - convective precipitation extremes scaling with temperature limited by droplet/ice fall speeds in simulations, doi:10.1002/2014GL061222
Kendon et al. (2014) Heavier summer downpours with climate change revealed by weather forecast resolution model, Nature Climate Change, doi:10.1038/nclimate2258
Pendergrass & Hartmann (2014) J. Clim: rainfall changes decomosed into mean and shift changes in distribution: 14-15%/K increase in heavy rain rates with warming associated to ENSO variability in models and observations
Westra et al. (2014) Rev. Geophys.: review of evaluating future changes to the intensity and frequency of short-duration extreme rainfall
Berg et al. (2013), Strong increase in convective precipitation in response to higher temperatures, Nat. Geosci., doi:10.1038/NGEO1731.
Lavers et al.(2013) ERL: future increases in moisture transport within Atmospheric Rivers implies increased likelihood of winter flooding in the UK.
Han et al. (2014) Asia-Pacific J Atmos Sci: updraughts produced by urban heat islands initiate clouds, and rainfall can be enhanced by high aerosol levels due to pollution; the enhanced surface roughness associated with cities doesn’t play a major role in thunderstorm initiation, though it may affect systems passing over them
O'Gorman (2012) Nature Geosci.: 99.9th percentile tropical precipitation increases by 10%/K based upon emergent constraint of present day variability on future responses
Lenderink et al. (2011) HESS: Hourly extremes scale with dewpoint temperature prior to the event at around 10-14%/K but relationship breaks down above dew points of 23oC
Sugiyama et al. (2010) PNAS precipitation extremes exceed moisture content increases
Hardwick Jones et al. (2010) GRL: sub daily rainfall extremes scale with Clausius Clapeyron up to 26oC with declines above this temperature associated with lower relative humidity (although the relevance to climate change is not clear and it is possible that the highest temperatures are associated with less rainfall and lower moisture availablility)
O'Gorman and Schneider (2009) PNAS: tropical precipitation extremes increase with warming vary widely across models, due to diverse changes in updraught velocity, but approximately scale with near surface specific humidity.
Turner & Slingo (2009) ASL: diversity of extreme rainfall responses over India linked to convection scheme
Global changes and energy balance
He et al. (2024) Nature Clim.: tropical hydrological sensitivity largest in wetter Pacific basin and negative in drier Atlantic basin due to stronger effect of drying land on relative humidity, with implications for extra-tropical teleconnections from diabatic heating
Yu et al. (2023) Earth Future: Reduced aerosol emissions induce precipitation increase in Northern Hemisphere and amplified intertropical rainfall contrast, while reduced greenhouse gas emissions dominate decrease in precipitation in the areas away from aerosol emission sources based on COVID-MIP experiments
Zhou et al. (2023) Nature Comm.: global precipitation increase linked to pattern of cloud changes with observations constrains global increases from 1.9-6.5 % to 2.9-6.3 % for 1979-2005 to 2080-2100 in an intermediate greenhouse gas emissions scenario
Raiter et al. (2023) GRL: Little Change in Apparent Hydrological Sensitivity at Large CO2 Forcing
Lee et al. (2023) ERL: energy budget equation for global precipitation applied to greenhouse gas removal and geoengineering scenarios
Paik et al. (2023) Earth's Future: Global monsoon area decreasing beyond original area during CO2ramp-down period due to Northern and Southern Africa, South and East Asia, and South America monsoons
Zhang et al. (2023) Nature Clim.: geographical pattern of global warming determines how much the water cycle changes in response to climate change based on warming patch model experiments
(see also PhD thesis)
Silvers et al. (2023) JAMES: decrease in exchange of mass between boundary layer and midtroposphere varies due to the range of responses in both mean precipitation and mean precipitable water and rchange in circulation intensity depends on range of the mean upward vertical velocity
Zhang et al. (2023) npj Clim. Atmos.Sci.: Asymmetric response in South Asian summer monsoon (SASM) precipitation under CO2 removal scenario due to enhanced El Niño-like and Indian Ocean dipole-like relative warming during ramp-down period which weakens Walker circulation, with suppressed rainfall over the Maritime Continent triggering equatorial Rossby wave and increased rainfall over the tropical western Indian Ocean exciting equatorial Kelvin wave, which combine to weaken ascent and moisture transport
Stjern et al. (2023) J. Clim: Rapid precipitation reductions in response to radiative forcings established after just a few days and for CO2 changes to increases after two years. Rapid cloud adjustments establish after 1 day and increase over time with the equilibrium cloud change pattern present after 1 year.
Li et al. (2022) J. Clim.: present-day fire aerosols weaken global water cycle significantly, weakening continental precipitation (-4.1x103 km3/yr), evapotranspiration (-2.5x103 km3/yr) and runoff (-1.5x103 km3/yr) as well as ocean evaporation (-8.1x103 km3/yr), precipitation (-6.6x103 km3/yr) and water vapor transport from ocean to land (-1.4x103 km3/yr)
Samset (2022) Commun. Earth Env.: spread in simulated aerosol absorption in CMIP6 models dominates uncertainty in simulated precipitation change, globally and regionally
Li et al. (2022) J. Clim,: Fire aerosols slow global water cycle, decreasing continental precipitation (-4100 km3/yr), evapotranspiration (-2500 km3/yr), and runoff (-1500 km3/yr), ocean evaporation (-8100 km3/yr), precipitation (-6600 km3/yr), and water vapor transport from ocean to land (-1500 km3/yr)
Norris et al. (2022) J. Clim.: variability associated with central Pacific ENSO a good proxy for future hydrological sensitivity; models underestimate hydrological sensitivity under ENSO with higher sensitivity models producing a stronger reduction in Walker Circulation strength and expansion of the Hadley Cells in response to ENSO
Chadwick et al. (2022) J. Clim.: decreased frequency and increased amount of daily precipitation governed by moisture and dry static energy changes
McCoy et al. (2022) GRL: Apparent global hydrological sensitivity is ~40% higher for Middle of the Road (SSP2-4.5) scenario with aerosol cleanup than for the Regional Rivalry (SSP3-7.0) scenario which maintains high absorbing aerosol effects
Samset et al. (2022) Sci. Data: PDRMIP
Heyblom et al. (2022) GRL: variability in biomass burning 1997-2014 amplifies hydrological cycle poleward of 40oN
Zhang et al. (2021) ACP: fast and slow precipitation response to responses to aerosol changes
Wang et al. (2021) Nature Comms.: using observed ocean surface energy balance as hydrological constraint, precipitation increased by 0.68+-0.51 %/K (2001-2018), slightly higher than the CMIP5 multi-model mean of 0.38+-1.18%/K.
Laakso et al. (2020) ESD: Applying Solar Radiation Management to offset 21st century climate warming in the RCP4.5 scenario leads to a 1.42 % (MPI-ESM) or 0.73 % (CESM) reduction in global mean precipitation, whereas Carbon Dioxide Removal increases global precipitation by 0.5 % in both ESMs for 2080–2100 relative to 2010–2020
Wang & Huang (2019) J. Clim: CO2 shortwave absorption important in determining upper tropospheric warming response to CO2 increases which dynamical adjustments respond to cool lower troposphere and further warm upper troposphere
Igel & Biello (2019) npjCAS: statistical model of hydrological response based on energy and moisture constraints
Hodnebrog et al. (2019) ACPD: Deviations from a thermodynamic response of column water vapour to surface warming are identified in idealised modelling experiments that show contrasting fast adjustments to drivers, varying from 6.4±0.9%/K for sulphate aerosol to 9.8±2%/K for black carbon
Sillmann et al. (2019) npj Clim: The response to radiative forcing from Black Carbon aerosol forcing increases the uncertainty of future changes in both wet and dry extremes.
Dagan et al. (2019) GRL: changes in aerosol can drive contrasting regional precipitation responses with atmospheric heating leading to increases in the tropics explained by enhanced convergence but decreases in the extra-tropics relating to atmospheric stabilisation
Webb et al. (2018) J. Clim.: Idealised modelling experiments have uncovered the important role of surface evaporation in setting the amount of tropospheric warming that determines increases in radiative cooling rates and therefore the hydrological sensitivity. The rate of surface evaporation combined with convection also sets the amount of warming aloft and is important in determining low-altitude cloud feedbacks through altering the inversion strength.
Richardson et al. (2018) J. Clim.: physically based simple model suggests 20th century temperature-driven land-mean precipitation increase masked by fast adjustments to anthropogenic sulfate and volcanic forcing consistent with the small observed trend but future substantial responses expected as sulphate forcing decreases.
Myhre et al. (2018) GRL: model diversity in rapid precipitation adjustments to radiative forcing smaller for solar irradiance changes than other drivers (CO2, CH4, black carbon, sulfate aerosols)
Jeevanjee & Romps (2018) PNAS: radiative constraint on global precipitation increases with warming linked to increased tropospheric depth using idealized simulations of radiative–convective equilibrium
Thackerly et al. (2018) GRL: higher global hydrologic sensitivity linked with larger extreme precipitation increases in tropical and some extratropical regions and models with larger increase in extreme precipitation exhibit compensating larger declines or smaller increases in light-moderate events
Shaw & Tan (2018) GRL: Idealised modelling study finds atmospheric circulation response to CO2 quadrupling is dominated by subtropical descent which drive poleward shift in Hadley Cell while response to CO2 increases in the tropics drives strengthening and upward shift of the subtropical jet and is negligible in response to high latitude CO2 increases.
Plesca et al. (2018) J. Clim.: idealised global 4xCO2experiments applying subsidence region vertical motion diagnostics find reduced radiative cooling drives 3-4% slowdown of tropical circulation, dominated by radiatively-driven changes in ocean subsidence regions with land-sea differential heating contributing to vertical pattern of weakening by driving vertical expansion of the tropics. Surface warming subsequently leads to up to 12% slowdown in circulation, dominated by the enhancement of the static stability in the upper troposphere.
Siler et al. (2018) Clim. Dyn.: Surface energy perspective on global precipitation changes: thermodynamic increase in evaporation comes at the expense of the sensible heat flux, while radiative changes cause the sensible heat flux to increase, this offsetting resulting in a relatively small change in the global mean, and contributing to an impression that global precipitation is radiatively constrained.
Watanabe et al. (2018) Nature Clim.: Equilibrium climate sensitivity and hydrological sensitivity per unit warming anti-correlated due to radiative effects related to low-cloud responses and observations imply hydrological sensitivity of 1.8%/K, 30% lower than simulations
Baker et al. (2018) Nature Clim.: direct CO2 effect on extreme tropical precipitation independent of global warming (due to changes in land sea contrast)
Liu et al. (2018) J. Clim: PDRMIP regional precipitation response to regional aerosol forcing
Samset et al. (2018) Clim. Atmos. Sci.: Hydrological sensitivity to slow temperature responses is suppressed over land (0-2%/oC) relative to the global mean, in particularly over low latitudes and for Black Carbon aerosol radiative forcing
Myhre et al. (2018) Nature Comms: Large effect of sensible heat on global precipitation changes in historical period due to compensating effects of CO2 atmospheric heating and enhanced radiative cooling of a slowly warming atmosphere
Liu et al. (2018) JGR: precipitation variability linked to high cloud radiative cooling changes
Sillmann et al. (2017) GRL: extreme rainfall scales with surface temperature regardless of forcing
Shaw & Voigt (2016) GRL: changes in atmospheric energy budget over land dominates fast regional climate response to CO2 radiative forcing
Richardson et al. (2016) JGR: An assessment of precipitation adjustment and feedback computation methods
Flaschner et al. (2016) J. Clim. Understanding the Intermodel Spread in Global-Mean Hydrological Sensitivity
DelSole et al. (2016) J. Clim: Inferring Aerosol Cooling from Hydrological Sensitivity
Salzmann (2016) Sci. Adv.: Global warming without global mean precipitation increase?
Samset et al. (2016) GRL: PDRMIP results - fast and slow precipitation responses to a range of forcings and models; Black Carbon produces large regional fast responses and many land regions dominated by fast responses related to circulationDong and Sutton (2015) Nature Climate Change: greenhouse gas focing explains much of increase in Sahel rainfall since 1980s through enhanced meridional temperature gradient with a secondary role for aerosol
Thorpe & Andrews (ERL): historical and projected global precipitation responses reproduced by simple model based on fast adjustment to radiative forcing and slow temperature dependent response
Allan et al.(2014) Surv. Geophys.: radiative forcing and energy balance explains small observed changes in precipitation while future increases in moisture transport are also important in determining contrasting changes in intense rainfall and light rainfall.
Pendergrass & Hartmann (2014) J. Clim.: Global precipitation increases by around 1.1 Wm-2K-1 in transient climate experiments forced by CO2, explained using idealised calculations, by increased atmospheric radiative cooling to the surface.
Bony et al. (2013) Nature Geosci.: Robust circulation responses to CO2 forcing related to fast adjustment and slow thermodynamical response
Wu et al. (2013) Nature Clim.: tropospheric aerosol effects on 20th century hydrological cycle
Cao et al. (2012) ERL: Climate response to changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide and solar irradiance on the time scale of days to weeks
O'Gorman et al. (2012) Surv. Geophys.: Energetic Constraints on Precipitation Under Climate Change
Muller and O'Gorman (2011) Nature Climate Change: An energetic perspective on the regional response of precipitation to climate change
Andrews et al. (2010) GRL: energy budget approach for interpreting precipitation response to radiative forcing
Ming et al. (2010) GRL: Altitude of absorbing aerosol change determines precipitation and sensible heating response
Lu & Cai (2009) J. Hydromet role of sensible heat changes and boundary layer stabilisation in determining precipitation changes
Levermann et al. (2009) PNAS: Basic mechanism for abrupt monsoon transitions
Allen & Ingram (2002) Nature: fundamental constraints upon precipitation and its extrmess
Link to circulation changes
(see also papers on interhemispheric energy contrast)Ma et al. (2024) Nature Comm.: observed Arctic Atmospheric River frequency increases twice as much over Atlantic than Pacific 1981-2021 due to multi decadal variability, the removal of which better constrains future projections
Mohino et al. (2024) ESD: monsoon onset over Sahel shows no clear response to Atlantic Multidecadal Variability (AMV), while the demise tends to be delayed, and the overall length of the monsoon season increased by up to 5 days for positive AMV pattern
MacLeod et al. (2024) GRL: extreme rainfall in East Africa increases with larger magnitude positive Indian Ocean Dipole as expected in future with more than linear increase in impacts
Winkelbauer et al. (2024) Clim. Dyn.: Overestimated Arctic precipitation, evaporation and runoff as well as energy flux out of the ocean and poleward oceanic heat transports by CMIP6 models
Craig et al. (2023) JGR: ~1 Sv moisture imported by Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Ocean and similar imported bgy Pacific (mostly from Indian Ocean) but only about half as much imported by Atlantic and Indian Ocean
Shrestha & Soden (2023) GRL: global atmospheric overturning circulation has weakened in recent decades due to anthropogenic radiative forcing despite a strengthening of the regional Pacific Walker Circulation related to SST patterns
He et al. (2023) Nature: cross-equatorial gradient in tropical Atlantic SSTs driven by anthropogenic emissions and volcanic aerosols since 1950 determine Atlantic hurricane formation and Sahel rainfall though this signal only emerges in CMIP6 simulations when unrealistic warming patterns are removed
Capotondi et al. (2023) Nature Rev. Earth Env.: Mechanisms of tropical Pacific decadal variability
Klein & Taylor (2022): satellite observations demonstrate that dry soils at scales of more than 200 km frequently create atmospheric conditions that intensify mature MCSs in the Sahel, long after their initiation
Falstar et al. (2023) Nature: 1992–2011 Pacific Walker Circulation strengthening anomalous but not unprecedented in context of past 800 years.
Wu et al. (2023) Sci. Rep.: volcanic eruptions linked with series of rapid strengthening and poleward shifts of the North Pacific westerly jet stream during mid-late 1990s
Geng et al. (2023) Nature: Increased occurrence of consecutive La Nina events under global warming by 8-30% in low emissions scenario and 20-46% in high emissions scenario due to stronger warming in northeastern subtropical Pacific that favours multi-year events
Schwarzwald et al. (2023) Clim. Dyn.: Too wet short rains in models connected with too warm Indian Ocean in the west and convection that is too deep and models connect equatorial African winds with the strength of the short rains but observations show stronger connection in long rains for East Africa.
Kornhuber et al. (2023) Nature Comm.: increased likelihood of concurrent low crop yields during summers featuring meandering jets, the impacts of which are underestimated by models
Preece et al. (2023) Nature Comm.: Rossby wave response to low spring snow cover in North America increases prevalance of Greenland anticyclone which along with Arctic warming amplification favours more wavy jet stream
Cai et al. (2023) Nature Rev. Earth Env.: Anthropogenic influence on increasing amplitude of ENSO since 1960
Koppa et al. (2023) JGR: moisture sources for Horn of Africa prcipitation dominated by thermodynamcis and circulation changes rather than ocean evaporation with local recycling increasingly important as wet seasons progress
Chemke & Yuval (2023) Nature Geosci.: human-induced weakening of the Northern Hemisphere tropical circulation
Tian et al. (2023) J. Clim.: northward movement of Sahara desert
Mu et al. (2023) GRL: Dry season rainfall declined in a key agricultural region of the Amazon 1981-2020 with moisture sources maintained locally by forests but oceanic sources declining
Woollings et al. (2023) Comm. Earth Env.: poleward shift in jet streams emerging in last 40 years and priobably linked to tropical warming
Liu et al. (2023) Nature Clim.: teleconnections as tipping points e.g. robust links between regions such as Amazon and Tibet plateau
Han et al. (2022) Clim Dyn: increased summer Sahel rain in warmer climate but stronger in mid-Pliocene due to additional warming in N America/Greenland
Bhatia et al. (2022) Nature Comm.: more rapid intensification of tropical cyclones explained by thermodynamic effects of human-caused warming
Lee et al. (2022) npj Clim. Atmos. Sci.: present divergence between simulated and observed trends in equatorial Pacific east-west temperature gradient reflects deficiencies in representing forced response or multi-decadal internal variability
Crespo et al. (2022) Nature CLim.: Weakening of the Atlantic Niño variability under global warming
Cresswell-Clay et al. (2022) Nature Geosci.: expansion of Azores high unprecedented in past 1,200 years and linked to anthropogenic forcing and drying of Mediterranean
Hirasawa et al. (2022) J. Clim.: Sahel rainfall decline 1950s-1970s and recovery after 1970s determined by interplay between slow temperature changes between Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans and fast aerosol-circulation responses which shifted from northern hemisphere to African emissions between the periods
Liang et al. (2022) CLim. Dyn.: southward shift and intensification of Atmospheric Rivers affecting East Asia since 1951
Dai (2022) Clim. Dyn.: weakening AMOC with CO2-induced warming driven by Arctic amplification of warming that enhance fresh meltwater flux and reduce evaporation due to reduced ocean-air temperature differences
Zhang & Li (2022) Clim. Dyn.: Future thermodynamically driven increases in Sahel rainfall but model spread linked to evolution of Atlantic SSTs
Dyer et al. (2022) Clim. Dyn.July–September rainfall in the Greater Horn of Africa influenced by Mascarene and South Atlantic highs and souther Ocean biases
Kolstad & MacLeod (2022) Clim. Dyn.: too-wet East Afrrica short rains forecasts linked to positive initial ENSO and IOD states in August
Dong et al. (2022) Nature Comms: weakening Atlantic subtropical jet linked to aerosol reductions in Europe and increases over Asia that reduced latitudinal temperature gradient
Smith et al. (2022) Nature. Comm.: weak signal of weakening westerlies over UK in response to Arctic ice melt but effect underestimated by models
Kebacho (2022) Nat. Haz.: circulation effects on May-March Tanzania rainfall
Studholme et al. (2022) Nature Geosci.: Tropical cyclone poleward range largest in past 3?million years
Li et al. (2021) Clim. Dyn.: El Niño/NAO- act to shift N Atlantic ARs equatorward, La Niña/NAO+ displace ARs poleward
Lyon (2021) IJOC: SST and East Africa rainfall biases persist in CMIP6
Kohyama et al. (2021) JGR: narrow downward "wall" in Walker circulation over East Affrica can explain succeptibility to large swings in precipitation
Kebacho (2021) Meteorol. Atmos. Phys.:El Niño and IOD linked to East Africa rainfall through Rossby Wave teleconnections but with regime shifts in 1982 and 1997
Barnes et al. (2021) IJOC: positive NAO and negative AMO result in heavy rainfall in western Britain with distinct summer and winter precursors
Mamalakis et al. (2021) Nature Clim.: CMIP6 models project a robust zonally varying ITCZ response by 2100, with a northward shift over eastern Africa and the Indian Ocean and a southward shift in the eastern Pacific and Atlantic oceans
Abell et al. (2021) Nature: Poleward and weakened westerlies during Pliocene warmth
Watanabe et al. (2021) Nature Clim.: intensifying SST gradient observed during 1951–2010 could arise from internal climate variability based on CMIP5 experiments
Hari et al. (2020) GRL: India precipitation increase since 2002 linked to northward propagation of ITCZ
Ma et al. (2020) GRL: Poleward shift in southern hemisphere AR since 1979 based on reanalyses and a climate model ensemble.
Agostino et al. (2020) GRL: Northern sub-tropical expansion dominated by internal variability so recent observed trends are difficult to attribute to radiative forcing
Lorente-Plazas et al. (2020) JGR: AR-like structures from West Africa influence Iberia
Gimeno et al. (2020) Earth Sci. Rev.: recent progress on investigating the sources of continental precipitation
Zhao et al. (2020) GRL: Idealised modelling shows that Black Carbon aerosols, especially from Asia, are more efficient than GHGs in driving Northern Hemisphere tropical expansion through increasing extratropical static stability.
Li et al. (2020) QJRMS: Tropical drivers of mid-latitude precipitation
Blackport & Screen (2020) Sci. Adv.: observations and coupled simulations do not support an increased amplitude of mid-latitude waves in response to Arctic warming amplification.
Zappa et al. (2020) PNAS: SST pattern evolution modulates subtropical drying through circulation change
Seager et al. (2019) Nature Clim.: Observed strengthening of the Pacific SST gradient since 1998 is not captured by simulations and this has been linked with equatorial cold tongues that are too cool and warm too much, casting doubt on the reliability of projections in some regions such as East Africa
Nieto et al. (2019) Adv. Water Res.: Contribution of the main moisture sources to precipitation during extreme peak precipitation months using FLEXPART and MSWEP
Chemke & Polvani (2019) Nature Geosci.: recent strengthening of northern Hadley Circulation in reanalyses is spurious and continued weakening of the tropical Hadley circulation is an expected consequence of rising CO2 concentrations
Kornhuber et al. (2019) Nature Clim.: Amplified Rossby waves enhance risk of concurrent heatwaves in major breadbasket regions
Kornhuber et al. (2019) ERLExtreme weather patterns in the norther hemisphere summer of 2018 were linked to an atmospheric blocking pattern attributed to reletively cool north Atlantic ocean temperature that is expected to amplify as the global climate warms
Maidens et al. (2019) J. Clim.: influence of tropical disturbances on weather extremes in Europe during winter 2015/16
Pasquier et al. (2019) GRL: Atmospheric blocking patterns strongly influences the spatial distribution of atmospheric river occurrence.
Li et al. (2019) J. Clim: thermodynamically constrained cloud feedbacks were found to amplify poleward shifts in extratropical jets in detailed numerical experiments
Chemke et al. (2019) J. Clim: increases in subtropical stability in response to idealised CO2 forcing was found to explain tropical expansion forcing while slower increases in moisture content further drive poleward shift of the dry zones
Funk et al. (2018) QJRMS: western V decadal pattern of SST variability linked with East Africa drought
Vellinga & Milton (2018) QJRMS: a warm western Indian Ocean, strong MJO activity in February–March and easterly QBO during the preceding autumn reduce subsidence and increase long rains intesity over East Africa.
Totz et al. (2018) GRL: Zonal mean changes in tropical rainy belt disguise regionally contrasting behaviour
Song et al. (2018) Nature Clim.: Simulated strengthening of subtropical high pressure primarily during April–June in the Northern Hemisphere due to seasonal delay of monsoon rainfall.
Staten et al. (2018) Nature Clim.: tropics have widened about 0.5o per decade since 1979 (review of tropical expansion)
Byrne et al. (2018) CCCR: projected decrease in ITCZ width (~0.5%/K) & strength (~1%/K) consistent with observed changes manifest as more organised convection in core and less in periphery but weaker likely related to internal variability/local feedbacks while models with bigger decrease in strength simulate increased width due to mass consevation. Small changes in location projected and linked to atmospheric energy budget contrast and dampened by ocean response. [review, see also Byrne & Schneider 2016 J. Clim; Tan et al. 2015 Nature; etc].
Siler et al. (2018) J. Clim: extending thermodynamic contraint on P-E changes by including diffusive moist static energy transport into the tropics to represent the Hadley cell, subtropical expansion and poleward shift in storm tracks are predicted and attributed to Arctic surface warming amplification that is further modified by patterns in ocean heat uptake and local feedbacks. By applying a more physically-based estimate of evaporation, resulting precipitation changes also imply a narrowing of the ITCZ.
Zhao et al. (2018) GRL: Aerosols enlarge tropical cyclone rainfall area in western North Pacific by 9-20 km/0.1 AOD for each 0.1, eyewall moves farther from center and rainfall amount increases
Sharmila & Walsh (2018) Nature Clim.: poleward migration of tropical cyclones linked to expansion of Hadley cell and changes in atmospheric stability.
Rowell & Chadwick (2018) J. Clim.: uncertain E. Africa rainfaall response linked to regional SST pattern response and atmospheric response to these SST changes with more remote southern subtropical Indian ocean playing a role in some models
Fischer et al. (2018) Nature Geosci.: review of palaeo evidence for impact of 2oC warming
Ma et al. (2018) Ann Rev.: review of climate change–induced responses of tropical atmospheric circulation & impacts on hydrological cycle
Giannini et al. (2018) GRL: wetter conditions in equatorial East Africa from weakening of the zonal overturning circulation
Li et al. (2018) GRL: reduction in monsoon rainfall and circulation from fast adjustment to aerosol-cloud interactions
Hua et al. (2018) Clim. Dyn.: central equatorial April-June drought linked to internal variability in Indo-Pacific SST
Ham et al. (2018) Nature Clim: models with more realsitic low east Pacific rainfall simulate strengthened Walker circulation, greater west Pacific warming through Bjerknes feedback and greater tropical precipitation overall due to evaporation responses and based on observations implies projected tropical precipitation responses may be larger than simulated by the CMIP5 model ensemble mean
Steptoe et al. (2017) Rev. Geophys.: linking concurrent natural hazards to atmospheric circulation
Baker et al. (2018) IJOC - linking extreme UK rainfall predictability and large scale atmospheric circulation patterns
Brown (2017) IJOC: Variability of extreme UK daily rainfall & trends linked to atmospheric circulation indices (ENSO, PDO, NAO, AMO) using non-stationary extreme value analysis.
Xia and Huang (2017) GRL: weakened tropical circulation due to differential heating of ascending and subsiding regions
Ummenhofer et al. (2017) GRL: emerging distinct pattern of enhanced wintertime precipitation over the northern British Isles since 1980s associated with changes in moisture transport and more frequent atmospheric river events and linked to multidecadal variability
Su et al. (2017) Nature Comms: tightening of the ascending branch of the Hadley Circulation coupled with a decrease in tropical high cloud fraction is key in modulating precipitation response to surface warming
RodrÃguez-Fonseca et al. (2015) J. Clim: Variability and Predictability of West African Droughts: A Review on the Role of Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies: interannual warming of equatorial Atlantic and Pacific/Indian Oceans results in rainfall reduction over the Sahel; positive Mediterranean SST anomalies increase rainfall. Decadal tropical warming leads to drought over the Sahel; warming over the N Atlantic promotes increased rainfall. CMIP5 projections are for wetter central Sahel, drier for the western part, and a delay in the monsoon onset.
Yang et al. (2015) J. Clim.: Annual Cycle of East African Precipitation dominated by moist static energy determined by moisture convergence in the rainy seasons (MAM, OND) linked to warmer SSTs.
Climatology of MCSs affecting UK: 1981-1998 (Gray & Marshall, 1998, Weather); 1998-2008 (Lewis & Gray, 2010, Atmos. Res.)
OTHER PAPERS
Land surface/other
Vegetation
Tian et al. (2024) Glob. Change. Biol.: Growing season length changes less than precipitation seasonality due to buffering effect of soil moisture
Vermeulen et al. (2024) Glob. Chang. Biol.: primary driver of changes in ecosystem functioning in arid savannas is increased frequency/severity of rainfall events, rather than drought pressure
O'Brien et al. (2024) Commun. Earth Environ.: Tree growth & survival more sensitive to high rainfall than drought in humid Malaysian forest
Weber et al. (2024) Science: forestation increased aerosol scattering and the greenhouse gases methane and ozone following increased biogenic organic emissions plus decreased surface albedo, which overall offsets up to a third of the negative forcing from the additional CO2 removal under a 4°C warming scenario.
Wigley et al. (2024) New Phytologist: increased dry spell length and frequency in growing season may slow down tree growth in some savannas and with longer growing seasons may allow grasses an advantage over C3 plants even accounting for CO2 fertilisation effects that is contingent on adequate soil moisture
Smith et al. (2024) PNAS: Impacts of extreme 1yr drought on vegetation larger than thought
Boulton et al. (2023) Nat. Clim: discussion of paper signaling loss of resiliance of Amazon rainforest based on vegetation optical depth and NDVI data
Yang et al. (2023) Agric. Forest Meteorol.: More temporally concentrated rainfall away from noon, the higher daily ET and GPP based on 14 forest sites between 35°S-35°N from FLUXNET2015
Bochow & Boers (2023) Sci. Adv.: South American monsoon approaching critical transition in response to deforestation based on dynamical simulations & observations
Sierra et al. (2023) Clim. Dyn.: varying effect of deforestation on wet season onset over Amazon
Yang, Roderick et al. (2023) Nature Rev. Earth Env.: increased evapotranspiration of 0.28-1.04 mm/year per year 1982–2011 accelerating to 0.88-1.19 mm/year per year 2001–2020, mostly related to increasing leaf area index particularly in northern high latitudes where greening predominates
Li et al. (2023) Science: Ecosystem water use efficiency increased up to 2000 due to higher CO2 levels but remained constant thereafter due to decreases in relative humiaidty basen on combining modelling with FLUXNET observations
Fernández-Martínez et al. (2023) Nature: increasing variability of CO2 uptake by vegetation due to human caused climate change may indicate destabilization of carbon-climate feedbacks
Su et al. (2023) J. Hydrology: Interannual precipitation variability increases grassland above-ground biomass by 7% and increased below ground biosmass, mostly in arid regions
McDermid et al. (2023) Nature Rev. Earth Env.: over 3.6 million km2 of currently irrigated land, intensively over US High Plains, California Central Valley, Indo-Gangetic Basin and northern China, with global extraction of ~3700 km3 per year, ~70% of global freshwater withdrawals
Liu et al. (2023) Nature: interannual relationship between tropical water availability and CO2 growth rate became increasingly negative during 1989–2018 compared to 1960–1989, in part due to internal variability but also implying intensifying water–carbon coupling that is not reproduced by climate models
Alexander et al. (2023) ERL: Climate seasonality and extremes influence net primary productivity across California's grasslands, shrublands, and woodlands, particularly greater precipitation and warmer minimum temperatures in early spring and winter and maximum annual temperature and climatic water deficit (CWD)
Zhang et al. (2023) Nature Clim.: intensified wetland CH4 emissions during 2000–2021 due to warming especially warmer, wetter tropical swamps based on a wetland model, with 2020 and 2021 being exceptional years of growth, larger than expected from climate models
Zhou et al. (2023) Nature Clim.: land surface changes account for 73–81% of projected global runoff increases due to vegetation responses to rising CO2 concentration and responses vegetation cover and soil moisture to a warmer atmosphere.
Smith et al. (2023) Nature: Large-scale tropical deforestation contributes to observed precipitation decreases 2003-2017 and estimated future deforestation in the Congo will reduce local rainfall by 8–10% in 2100
Higgins et al. (2023) Nature Geosci.: Shifts from greening to browning in many regions symptomatic of diminishing carbon uptake with ecosystems in dry/warm ecosystems sensitive to soil moisture changes while in cooler locations temperature is most important with CO2 fertilization limited
Uribe et al. (2023) Nature Clim.: expansion of tropical regions with intense dry spells reduces biomass by 7-12% in RCP4.5 from 1950-2100 with South America contributing 40% of this change.
Zhao et al. (2023) GRL: delayed rainy season onset reduces productivity in drylands over whole growing season based on satellite observations over China since 2001
Zhan et al. (2022) GRL: plant growth responds to elevated CO2 levels (+20 ppm) before water cycle responses emerge (+40 ppm) and more strongly in forests than grasslands based on modelling
Cui et al. (2022) Nature Geosci.: vegetation changes 2001–2018 increased global water availability by 0.26 mm/yr2, counteracting 15% of recently observed decline in global water availability with precipitation increasing more than evapotranspiration over 53% of the global land surface
Bauman et al. (2022) Nature: Tropical tree mortality increase associated with rising atmospheric water demand over Australia since 1980s
Forzieri et al. (2022) Nature: declining resilience of tropical forests to warming of climate change since 2000 based on global satellite data with an estimated 23% of undisturbed forest approaching critical resilience thresholds
Harris et al. (2022) GRL: coherent intraseasonal relationships between precipitation and Vegetation Optical Depth, particularly in arid or semi-arid regions where vegetation is water-limited and with vegetation lagging precipitation by about 7 days
Zou et al. (2022) Nature Geosci.: Degradation of wetlands could result in greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to around 408 gigatons of CO2 between 2021 and 2100 but their rewetting could reduce these emissions such that the radiative forcing caused by CH4 and N2O is fully compensated by CO2 uptake
Reich et al. (2022) Nature modest climate change may lead to major transitions in boreal forests
Hoek van Dijke et al. (2022) Nature Geosci.: Aforrestation leads to complex patterns of shifting water availability, ranging from 6% increases in some regions and 38% decreases in others
Zhou et al. (2022) Earth's Futuretropical water cycle projections strongly depend on model vegetation responses to elevated CO2 and associated changes in atmospheric moisture and circulation
Fust & Schlechta (2022) Ecological Modelling: rainfall timing affects semi-arid Madagascan ecosystem productivity more than decreases in ammount and increases in variability
Liu et al. (2022) J.Hydrol.: seasonality in climate and vegetation dominate water partitioning between evaporation and runoff
Ru et al. (2022) Func. Ecology: increased interannual precipitation variability increases carbon sink in semi arid field experiment
Gruter et al. (2022) PLOS: shifts in regions most suitable for growing coffee, avocados and cashews as climate warms and dry seasons intensify
Taylor et al. (2022) PNAS: patchy deforestation increases the frequency of afternoon storms locally in mostly deforested West Africa, particularly near ocean
McDowell et al. (2018) New Phytologist: Increasing mortality rates are associated with rising temperature and vapor pressure deficit, drought, wind events, fire and, possibly, CO2 fertilization-induced increases in stand thinning or acceleration of trees reaching larger, more vulnerable heights.
Cui et al. (2020) Nature Comms: Projected increase in dry season runoff over most monsoon regions due to stomatal closure-driven evapotranspiration reductions and atmospheric circulation change
Page et al. (2020) Hyd. Proc.: forests act to reduce flood peak through: (a) increased soil infiltration capacity; (b) enhanced soil drying resulting from transpiration; (c) increased ground-surface roughness and (d) enhanced wet-canopy evaporation.
Murphy et al. (2020) LDD: woodland acts to improve the hydrological functioning of soils in upland pastoral catchments thereby tempering flood hazard
Adams et al. (2020) Nature Clim.: a declining effect of CO2-driven WUE increases is identified in Isotopic tree ring data over the 20th century.
Singh et al. (2020) GRL: Lack of observed streamflow trends in the south east USA are influenced by counteracting effects of plant growth and Increased water-use efficiency driven by increased CO2 levels based on experiments.
Mankin et al. (2019) Nature Geosci.: increased plant growth counteracts runoff decrease in response to greater water use efficiency at higher CO2 levels in mid-latitudes based on CMIP5 simulations.
Guerrieri et al. (2019) PNAS: Recent increases in forest water use efficiency dominated by enhanced photosynthesis with reduced stomata conductance only important for species experiencing moisture limitation based on a 30 year tree ring record
Aron et al. (2019) JGR: Controlled observational experiments show that intermediate forest disturbance makes the canopy drier (150 Pa higher vapour pressure deficit) through increased turbulent mixing, particularly in the summer.
RETRACTED! Evaristo & McDonnell (2019) Nature: increased streamflow due to forest removal is dependent upon how much water is stored in a landscape while decreased stream flow in response to forest planting depends on evapotranspiration changes
Leite-Filho et al. (2019) J. Geophys. res.: a 50-60% deforestation rate was found to correspond to a wet season delay of about one week and greater chance of dry spells of eight days or longer based on correlation analysis of rain gauge and land use data for South America
Ciemer et al. (2019) Nature Geosci.: Tropical forest and savannah that has been historically exposed to a higher year to year variability in rainfall are more resilient against climatic disturbances based on observations.
Sikma et al. (2019) GRL: neglecting local plant dynamic responses leads to overestimates in the variation of cloud and vertical moisture transport based on simulations that allow plant-cloud coupling
Zhu et al. (2019) ASL: observations indicate that carbon dioxide fluxes from tropical land are particularly sensitive to precipitation received in the wet to dry transition season.
Brodrick et al. (2019) GRL: A range of responses of forest canopy water loss to drought conditions over California was identified from satellite observations
Walther et al. (2019) GRL: Forests more resilient that non-woody vegetation in terms of primary production decline in response to water deficit based on satellite measurements and simulations.
Yang et al. (2018) Nature Clim.: Evapotransporation increases driven by vapour pressure deficit in a warmer world are almost entirely offset by increased water use efficiency in simulations that account for plant stomatal response to elevated CO2 levels, countering the argument that warming leads to drying.
Kooperman et al. (2018) GRL: Plant physiological effects are a dominant driver of runoff intensification, contributing to one half of the 99th and one third of the 99.9th percentile runoff intensity changes.
Perri et al. (2018) GRL: soil water budget depend on salt-tolerant vegetation that can exert feedback on soil salinization through transpiration and by reducing leaching and limiting dryland salinization
Peters et al. (2018) Nature Geosci.: observed variations in plant water use efficiency suggests climate models underestimate drought-induced carbon-cycle feedbacks
Miller et al. (2019) GRL: defoliation from tropical cyclones leads to muted land-atmosphere interactions and enhanced runoff based on a case study approach
Soil moisture/groundwaterBerghuijs et al. (2024) Nature Clim.: groundwater recharge most sensitive to climate changes in regions where potential evapotranspiration slightly exceeds precipitation where groundater changes may amplify precipitation changes based on observed relationships
Kannenberg et al. (2024) Nature Geosci.: gross primary productivity and evapotranspiration derived from eddy covariance observations are most sensitive to soil moisture fluctuations, with lesser sensitivity to vapour pressure deficit and little to no sensitivity to air temperature or light
Garcia-Garcia et al. (2023) Nature Clim.: soil hot extremes increasing faster than air hot extremes by 0.7oC per decade in intensity over Central Europe with implications for hydrological responses and feedbacks
Qiao et al. (2023) Nature Comm.: spol moisture-atmosphere coupling amplifies global warming, adding 0.5oC over extratropical landmasses by end of 21st Century based on six CMIP6 coupled and fixed soil moisture experiments
Wang et al. (2023) Water Resources Res.: Decrease in soil moisture residence time by -2.3 days/decade 2001-2020 in ERA5-Land, -1.6 to +1.0 days/decade in nine CMIP6 simulations with projected decline up to -3.4 days/decade 2015-2100 in SSP5-8.5 showing accelleration of land hydrological cycle
Savelli et al. (2023) Nature Sust.: Urban water crises driven by elites’ unsustainable consumption
Berghuijs & Slater (2023) ERL: groundwater & baseflow important in determining flood magnitude over N American catchments
Lal et al. (2023) Sci. Total. Env.: Drying of upper 7cm soil in 48% of the globally vegetated area over past 40 years due to decreased rainfall and/or increased evapotranspiration based on ERA5-Land and satellite data with largest signals for broadleaved forests and croplands.
Wang et al. (2022) Nature Comm.: widespread drying of global midlatitude soils and wetting in northern subtropics and in spring between 45°N–65°N, during 1971–2016 with greenhouse gases contributing significantly to the changes in upper 10cm during August–November and 0–100cm during September–April.
Adloff et al. (2022) GRL: Severe drought & food insecurity in Horn of Africa from decline in March-May long rains, yet deeper groundwater is being replenished by more intense downpours in the lesser October-December short rains & this could offer some opportunity for adaptation:
Ascott et al. (2022) J. Hydrol.: inconsistency in the time of emergence of climate change signals in future groundwater levels, particularly in the CMIP5 models that exhibit drying
Wang-Erlandsson et al. (2022) Nat. Rev. Earth Env.: green water planetary boundary, as represented by percentage of ice-free land area on which root-zone soil moisture deviates from Holocene variability for any month of the year, has been pushed past a safe limit by human activities
MacAllister et al. (2022) Nature Geosci.: Net groundwater accumulation of 420 km3 over northwest India and Pakistan over the 20th century driven by irrigation canal development with stabilisation 1970-2000 due to contrasting effects of more rainfall and extraction for irrigation while less rainfall and continued extraction led to 70km3 loss in 2000-2010.
Swain et al. (2022) App. Water Sci.Indian groundwater review
de Graaf & Stahl (2022) ERL: Where groundwater used, it's reducing river flow in 40% of watersheds globally with depletion in 15% based on model allowing horizontal flows
Tegel et al. (2020) Sci. Rep.: More plentiful groundwater over western Europe in warmer periods based on tree ring data covering the past 1700 years
Murphy et al. (2020) Land Degradation & Development: Native woodland as an effective tool to improve the hydrological functioning of soils in upland pastoral catchments and the provision of flash-flood mitigation “ecosystem services”.
Puy et al. (2020) GRL: Projections of irrigated land area an underestimated and irriducable uncertainty in projections.
Devanand et al. (2019) GRL: Detailed modelling suggests that irrigation over northern India drives a northwestward shift in September monsoon rainfalland intensifies extreme events over Central India
Bierkens & Wada (2019) ERL: review on non-renewable groundwater use and groundwater depletion
Kang et al. (2019) GRL: Increased precipitation over the north China plain since 1950 was attributed to irrigation through soil moisture induced surface cooling and atmospheric circulation feedbacks
Hamlington et al. (2019) GRL: changing seasonality in groundwater storage is linked to ENSO variability
Kotchoni et al. (2019) Hydrogeo. J.: Observed seasonal groundwater recharge responds linearly to rainfall above an apparent threshold of 140-250 mm/year and varies substantially by geological environment (from 4-40% of annual rainfall).
Moon et al. (2019) GRL: Inaccurate positive soil moisture-precipitation feedbacks in climate models might contribute to unrealistic localized daily precipitation persistence
Gu et al. (2019) GRL: simulated anthropogenic greenhouse gas forcing of global drying of soils of 2100 m3/m3 over 1948-2005 is comparable to an observation-based estimates (2400 m3/m3).
Green et al. (2019) Nature: increased soil moisture variability is found to suppress the uptake of CO2 by the land based on Earth system climate simulations.
Cuthbert et al. (2019) Nature Clim.: combining groundwater models with hydrologic data sets, it is found that global groundwater fluxes can equilibrate with recharge variations due to climate change on 100 year timescales but longer where water tables are most sensitive to changes in recharge.
Dong & Crow (2018) GRL: satellite data suggests CMIP5 models underestimate soil moisture temperature coupling, particularl;y over central Europe
Ferguson et al. (2018) ERL: Depletion and contamination of groundwater through human activituies has been identified over the USA.
Taylor et al. (2011) Nature Geosci.: probability of convective initiation doubled over strong soil-moisture gradients over thne Sahel based on satellite observations
CryosphereGottlieb & Mankin (2024) Nature: March snowpack decline in 82 out of 169 major Northern Hemisphere river basins 1981–2020, with 31 attributable to human influence and larger melt sensitivity to warming as climatological winter temperatures exceed -8oC.
Wille et al. (2023) J.Clim: March 15-19 2022 East Antarctic heatwave linked with Atmospheric River preconditioned by Rosby Wave emanating fromn convective activity over Indian Ocean and leading to impacts of increased surface melt that was outweighed by greater snowfall locally but also contributed via associated extra-tropical cyclones to final collapse of the critically unstable Conger Ice Shelf while further reducing an already record low sea-ice extent.
Zhang et al. (2023) Nature Clim.: increase in Atmospheric Rivers in early winter over the Barents–Kara Seas and the central Arctic 1979–2021 caused stronger melting of thin, fragile ice cover with intensified surface downward longwave radiation and rainfall due to strong moisture transport events
Veh et al. (2023) Nature: ice-dam failures in six mountain regions show reduced extreme peak flows and volumes since 1900 and today originate at higher elevations and earlier in the year.
McGowan et al. (2021) J. Hydromet.: Increase in rain on snow flood events and snow pack loss in Australian alps due to warmer, more intense atmospheric rivers
Grogan et al. (2020) ERL: lengthening of snowmelt season by +15 to +28 days based on CMIP5 projections applied to hydrological models covering northeastern North America
Shugar et al. (2020) Nature Clim.: global glacier lake volume increased by around 48%, to 156.5 km3, between 1990 and 2018.
Yanagiya and Furuya (2020) JGR: Post-wildfire areas are linked with permafrost degradation in the Arctic based on satellite observations.
Guo et al. (2020) ERL: A 0.46x10^6 km^2/decade decrease in the area of near-surface permafrost distribution over 1921-2005 in the NH is attributed to GHG forcing based on CMIP5 simulations
Hu et al. (2020) GRL: Snow line receded to higher elevations in six Alpine catchments of up to 11 m/yr over 1984-2018
Pulliainen et al. (2020) Nature: 1980-2018 annual maximum snow mass in the Northern Hemisphere is 3062+-35 Gt (around 3 thousand km3+-1%) based on satellite data with snow mass decreasing by 46 Gt/decade (~ -4%/decade) across North America and negligible trends for Eurasia with increases over East Siberia compensated by decreases over the Baltic region.
Nusbaumer et al. (2019) GRL: Melting of Arctic ice linked to more local moisture source for precipitation over northwest Greenland based on simulations since the 1980s
Wille et al. 2019 Nature Geosci.: Around 40-100% of West Antarctic meltwater explained by infrequent (12 per year) atmospheric river events.
Chen et al. (2019) GRL: Atmospheric rivers increase the probability of snow ablation from 33% to 57% within the 0-10oC temperature range over western USA watersheds with increased runoff although this is primarily controlled by antecedent soil moisture.
Hu & Nolin (2019) GRL: atmospheric rivers contribute to N American snowpack
Farquharson et al. (2019) GRL: Anomalously warm summers in the Canadian high Arctic caused rapid thermokast development with mean thawing indices 150–240% above the 1979-2000 normal during 2003-2016 with maximum thaw depths already exceeding those projected to occur by 2090 under RCP 4.5.
Pritchard (2019) Nature: Seasonal glacier meltwater from high mountain glaciers in Asia is equivalent to the basic needs of 221±59 million people but regional meltwater production is currently 1.6 times the balance rate and is expected to increase in future decades before ultimately declining. The store of ice is expected to shrink by 2100, initially leading to increased runoff volumes that then reduce by the end of the century but with continued increases in peak (summer) monthly flows.
Turetsky et al. (2019) Nature: permafrost collapse is accelerating carbon release (comment)
Oltmanns et al. (2019) Cryosphere: Year-round intrusions of warm, moist air and heavy rain contribute to Greenland melt events. Melting more than doubled over 1979–2012 amounting to around 30% of the overall surface melt.
Neumann et al. (2019) GRL: More spring rainfall is expected to accelerate thawing of permafrost through heat advection by infiltration leading to increased methane emissions
Turner et al. (2019) GRL: Extreme precipitation events explain 70% of the inter-annual variance of Antarctic snowfall.
Little et al. (2019) GRL: Glacier mass balance is found to be sensitive to atmospheric rivers and other high moisture transport events in New Zealand with the liklihood of extreme ablation or snowfall events highly sensitive to air temperature.
Sun et al. (2019) GRL: Projections for the Sierra Nevada show a 30%±12% reduction in snowpack and 30 days earlier spring melt under the RCP4.5 scenario.
Yan et al. (2019) GRL: Observations over the USA show a 32% decrease in annual maximum snowmelt events, not including rain-on-snow events which increase by 32% in the north west USA, while annual maximum water availability for runoff decreased by 15% in snowy regions in the south west USA.
Sharma et al. (2019) Nature Clim.: observed widespread loss in lake ice which is expected to contribute to fresh water loss through increased evaporation
Wang et al. (2018) Nature Geosci.: Evaporation from lakes is expected to increase due to reduced ice cover and reduced longwave radiation loss due to slower surface warming than surrounding land.
Siler et al. (2019) GRL: natural fluctuations in atmospheric circulation have offset most western-USA snowpack loss relating to global warming since the 1980s.
Goldensen et al. (2018) J. Clim: modelling study finds atmospheric rivers produce contrasting effects on snowpack over western USA depedning on time of year
Fontrodona Bach et al. (2018) GRL: average decrease in mean snow depth over Europe around -12%/decade since 1951, accelerating after the 1980s.
Zeng et al. (2018) GRL: Observations indicate reduced annual maximum snow mass and shorter snow seasons since 1982 over parts of the USA with variability explained by temperature and accumulated winter precipitation.
Siler et al. (2018) GRL: natural changes in atmospheric circulation have offset most western-US snowpack loss relating to global warming since the 1980s.
Wu et al. (2018) GRL: modelling evidence for slower sping snowmelt across the Northern Hemisphere as climate warms due to reduced water content of snowpack
Rhoades et al. (2018) GRL: Under a high-emissions scenario, a 79% decline in peak snow upstream of 40% of California's reservoir storage is shown by 2100.
Mattingley et al. (2018) JGR: atmospheric river events important in determining melting of Greenland ice sheet
Huang et al. (2018) GRL: current wet year in future climate will be like dry year in the present in terms of Sierra Nevada hydrology due to snowpack loss but with additional intensified flood risk due to increased runoff over heavy rain days
Musselman et al. (2017) Nature Clim.: the fraction of meltwater volume produced at high snowmelt rates is greatly reduced in a warmer climate due to a contraction of the snowmelt season to a time of lower available energy, reducing by as much as 64% the snow-covered area exposed to energy sufficient to drive high snowmelt rates.
HydrologyShu et al. (2024) J. Hydrol.: Floods and droughts in China are expected to further intensify under global warming based on multiple climate and hydrological model.
Pietroiusti et al. (2024) ESD: record-breaking 2020 Lake Victoria levels and floods made 1.8 times more likely by human-caused climate change with lake levels about 7cm higher though effetcs of natural variability and water resource management also play an uncertain role
Chawanda et al. (2024) Hyd. Earth Sys. Sci.: Decreased river flows over Zambezi and Congo of up to 7% with increases for Limpopo and NIger due to climate change and land use change.
Nanditha & MIshra (2024) J. Hyd.: observed fragmented increases in extreme precipitation do not translate to increased river flooding but widespread future increases are projected across 7 major river basins of up to 30% higher probability in some basins by the mid and end of century under SSP5-8.5 scenario
Jasechko et al. (2024) Nature: rapid, widespread and accelerating groundwater-level decline >0.5 m/year in 21st century, especially in dry agricultural regions based on 170,000 monitoring wells and 1,693 aquifer systems
Sharma & Mujumdar (2023) Sci Rep: Baseflow found to be more strongly influencing flood magnitudes than soil moisture over 70 Indian catchments 1979–2018
Basso et al. (2023) Nature Geosci.: Increases in extreme river floods linked to catchment flow regime properties
Ielpi et al. (2022) Nature Clim.: Arctic river migration slowing with warming due to bank shrubification
Brunner & Doughety (2023) WRR: regional flood events over USA most often the result of a frontal storm combined with wet antecedent conditions over all regions and seasons
Yu et al. (2023) Sci. Adv.: flood events in Yellow River basin became almost an order of magnitude more frequent during the last millennium than the middle Holocene and 81% of the increased flood frequency can be ascribed to anthropogenic disturbances
Vieira Soares et al. (2023) Hydr. Proc.: a new method to separation of climate factors from hydropower plants and climate/land use effects on river identifies Itutinga-Camargos hydropower plant reduced water availability downstream by 0.28x109 m3/yr in Grande River, Brazil
Brunner et al. (2023) GRL: changing importance of different drought generation processes stronger in high-elevation catchments which include increasingly frequent snowmelt-deficit droughts
Zhang et al. (2022) Nature Clim: reduced snowmelt flooding explains lack of increase in river flooding in response to heavier precipitation
Rentschler et al. (2022) Nature Comm.: 1.81 billion people directly exposed to 1-in-100-year floods (fluvial, pluvial and coastal) with many located in South and East Asia, particularly China and India based on observed flood risk maps and population data
Chagas et al. (2022) Nature Comm.: water use and deforestation have amplified climate change effects on streamflow extremes over the past four decades across South America with drying (fewer floods and more droughts) associated with decreasing rainfall and increasing water use in agricultural zones over 42% of the study area but both more severe floods and droughts relating to more extreme rainfall and deforestation over 29% of the region
Soni et al. (2022) J. Hydro-env.: Surface solar dimming in India has reappeared (2006–2015) after a brightening during 1996–2005 resulting in significant effects on river flow
Merz et al. (2021) Nature Rev.: Causes, impacts & patterns of disastrous river floods
Koriche et al. (2021) ERL: Reduced Caspian sea level by up to 20m by 2100 in intermediate greenhouse gas emissions scenario SSP2-4.5
Eilander et al. (2020) ERL: Global scale assessment of the joint influence of riverine and coastal drivers of flooding in delta shows flood depths are significantly underestimated for 9.3% of the expected annual population exposed to present day riverine flooding if storm surges are not included.
Scussolini et al. (2020) GRL: Compared to pre-industrial climate, northern hemisphere catchments in the LIG dsiplay larger annual mean runoff (+14%), discharge (+25%), and 100-year flood volume (+82%) on average with decreases on average in the southern hemisphere based on combining PMIP4 climate models with hydrodynamic models.
Blösch et al. (2020) Nature:Last 3 decades among the most flood-rich periods in the past 500 years over Europe but with greater seasonality and warmer rather than cooler than average conditions compared to previous events.
Woolway et al. (2020) Nature Rev.: Global lake responses to climate change
Jahfer et al. (2020) ERL: Changes in Amazon outflow can affect AMOC, AMV and ITCZ
Chung et al. (2020) GRL: frequency of extreme Himalayan streamflow events 1980-2003 has doubled with increasing trend in annual maximum streamflow due to more intense precipitation
Bertola et al. (2020) HESS: Observations show increases in flood magnitude over NW Europe, largest for extreme floods in small catchments, decreases in flooding in southern Europe but less so for more extreme events in smaller catchemtns while reduced flooding in eastern Europe, particularly for larger catchyments.
Somers et al. (2019) GRL: continued groundwater reserves reduce impact of glacier loss on streamflow in the near term
Pall et al. (2019) J. Clim: Decreases in rain on snow events 1961–90 to 1981–2010 in many low elevation regions of Norway during spring and summer consistent with less snow cover in a warming climate with increases at higher elevations in winter–spring consistent with more snow falling as rain in a warming climate.
Adusumilli et al. (2019) GRL:: Atmospheric river events drive a large fraction of sub-seasonal water storage across western USA.
Dunn et al. (2019) ERL: Reduced sediment transport due to dam building more than compensates increases from smore intense rainfall and exacerbates flooding of deltas due to sea level rise and subsidence relating to groundwater extraction for water use.
Wasko & Nathan (2019) J. Hydrol.: the more extreme a flood event, the less dependent it is on soil moisture changes
Ganguli & Merz (2019) GRL: Increases in compound flood frequency 1901-2014 for higher return levels in northwestern Europe, particularly for the 1960s-1980s and equatorwards of 60oN, which is not seen for seasonal peak flows although sea level rise and water abstraction also play a role for some flow guages.
Vincent-Serano et al. (2019) GRL: increases in irrigated areas, agricultural intensification and natural revegetation of marginal lands are inferred to be the dominant drivers of decreases in streamflow (by up to 80%) over southwest Europe 1961-2012
Bloschl et al. (2019) Nature: Based on observations, increasing autumn and winter rainfall has resulted in increasing floods in northwestern Europe; decreasing precipitation and increasing evaporation have led to decreasing floods in medium and large catchments in southern Europe; and decreasing snow cover and snowmelt, resulting from warmer temperatures, have led to decreasing floods in eastern Europe.
Ficchi & Stephens (2019) GRL: climate variability drives changes in seasonal flood timing based on combining simulations and observations with a median change of 53 days over East Africa between El Nino and La Nina, substantially larger than an estimate of 14 days based on rainfall accumulation
Lenggenhager et al. (2019) QJRMS: pre-conditioning by multiple precipitation events linked to atmospheric blocking led to flooding from an alpine lake
Woolway & Merchant (2019) Nature Geosci.: many lakes will mix less frequently in response to surface warming based on modelling
Zanardo et al. (2019) GRL: Catastrophic floods across Europe and the associated economic losses correlated with NAO (combined observations and modelling) with the majority of historic floods in northern Europe during a positive phase while the majority of summer floods occurred during a negative phase.
Zellou & Rahali (2019) J. Hydrol.: The joint effects of heavy rainfall and high tides have also been linked with the severity of flooding in urban estuary region of Morocco using a joint risk approach applied to hydraulic models.
Padron et al. (2019) GRL: using present day mean precipitation as an emergent constraint on projected changes in water availability suggests extreme changes are less likely.
Li et al. (2019) GRL: human activities have caused a loss of nearly half of natural flow in Yellow River since the late 1960s and explain much of the recent downstream flow reduction based upon evidence from tree-ring observations.
Berghuijs et al. (2019) GRL: scale of near-synchronously flooding of multiple rivers have grown by ~50% over Europe for 1960-2010 and years with spatially extensive floods tend to follow one another
Huang et al. (2018) ERL: Combining hydrological models with bias corrected climate model outputs, there is evidence of projected earlier and increasing magnitude flooding in some but not all large river catchments.
Gudmundsson et al. (2018) GRL: contrasting trends in extreme stream flow depending on region and where trends are present the direction of the trend is consistent across all indices for that region.
Eekhout et al. (2018) Nature Clim.: Modelling evidence indicates increases in precipitation intensity leads to a redistribution of water within the catchment, where reservoir inflow increases and water storage in soil decreases, affecting plant water stress and soil erosion.
Wang et al. (2018) Nature Geosci.: Recent drying of hydrologically land-locked catchments (2002-2016) potentially accounts for 9% of current sea level rise based on estimates from integrating satellite observations with hydrological modelling.
Yin et al. (2018) Nature Comms.: observed increase in daily runoff extremes greater or equal to precipitation extremes and above Clausius-Clapeyron scaling are found over most regions of the globe (but with large spatial and decadal variability) suggesting projections in storm runoff may be underestimated.
Musselman et al. (2018) Nature Clim.: Projected rain-on-snow events increase in frequency in higher elevations of western North America, resulting in a 20-200% enhancement of flood risk.
Sidibe et al. (2018) J. Hydrol.: Changes in west/central Africa streamflow 1950-2005 consistent with rainfall but post-1990s recovery modulated by by enhanced evapotranspiration.
Paltan et al. (2018) ERL: under 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C warming scenarios the historical 1-in-100 year river flow occurs with a frequency of 1-in-25 years.
Bloschl et al. (2017) Science: Changing climate shifts timing of European floods
Tan & Gan (2015) Sci. Rep.: observed decreases in stream flow during recent decades over 96 Canada catchments are explained by direct human impact that overwhelms increases due to climate change including glacier melt.
Paleo-evidence
(where not captured above)
Weij et al. (2024) Nature: cool-moist rather than arid glacial conditions across the southern subtropics due to reduced evaporation, when accounting for plant physiological responses to lower CO2
Konecky et al. (2023) Nature Geosci.: reduced precipitation during the Little Ice Age (1450–1850) and higher values after the onset of anthropogenic warming (~1850) with Pacific Walker Circulation dominating regional variability, particularly since 1850, based on isotope measurements.
Freund et al. (2023) Comm. Earth Env.: Central and western European drought 2015-2017 highly unusual in context of tree-ring record from 1600 with Europe-wide drying trend since mid-20th century identified
Jiang et al. (2022) Nature: link beteween warm pool heat content, moisture and latent heat release and monsoon precipitation intensity on paleo-timescales
Korichea et al. (2022) Quaternery Sci. Rev.: Caspian Sea Quaternery level increased by Fennoscandian Ice-sheet loading and damming and southward redirection of north-flowing rivers leading to overflow to Black Sea at LGM.
Braconnot et al. (2019) GRL: Simulations show changes in Earth's orbit cause long-term monsoon drying trend in India and west Africa over last 6000 years but Indian monsoon rainfall is more sensitive to anthropogenic CO2
Baek et al. (2019) GRL: La Ninas are the principal driver of widespread droughts affecting the USA since 850AD.
Routson et al. (2019) Nature: Arctic amplification is also expected to reduce precipitation in middle latitueds based on paleoclimate data sampling the early Holocene
Thomas et al. (2018) GRL: Wetter summers 8,000 years ago synchronous with warming on western Greenland and throughout Northern Hemisphere and caused by increased local evaporation and increased poleward moisture transport, consistent with mechanisms for projected future changes
Tierney et al. (2016) Nature Geosci.: Cooling Indian Ocean sea surface temperatures linked to North Atlantic climate changes to weaken Indian monsoon
Tierney et al. (2017) Sci. Adv.: Evidence for substantial and rapid paleo changes in Sahara precipitation that involve strong vegetation and dust feedbacks
Misc
Dee et al. (2024) ERC: Water isotopes, climate variability, and the hydrological cycle: recent advances and new frontiers
Dutta & Markonis (2024) ERL: ERA5-Land displays unrealistic changes in and inconsistencies between runoff and P-E
Lavers et al. (2022) Q. J. Roy. Meteorol. Soc.: ERA5 suitable for extratropical precipitation monitoring with larger errors in the Tropics based on comparison with observations at 5,637 stations from 2001 to 2020
Dee et al. (2023) ERL: Water isotopes, climate variability, and the hydrological cycle: recent advances and new frontiers
Schwarzwald et al. (2022) Clim. Dyn.: biases in hydroclimatology over East Africa remain in CMIP6
Harvey et al. (2022) QJRMS: cloud resolving models used to demonstrate earlier convection over dry patches which the Met UM can represent rudimentarily
Skidmore (2022) Amer. J. Agric. Econ.: longer dry season damages livestock
Matano et al. (2022) Earth's Future: human-water interactions during drought to flood event in the Horn of Africa
Dunn et al. (2022) ERL: correction to encoding of calm events reduces reversal of global stilling after 2010 by 30%
Li et al. (2022) Nature Clim.: simulations with increases in precipitation to condensed water "efficiency" ratio, in line with cloud resolving models, show greater slowdown of the large-scale Hadley and Walker circulations and a 2x greater increase in extreme rainfall than models with a decreasing precipitation efficiency ratio
McColl et al. (2022) Nature Clim.: analyse actual water flows and stores not empirical quantities such as aridity index in models
Chand et al. (2022) Nature Clim.: robust declining trends in the annual number of Tropical Cyclones at global and regional scales during the twentieth century
Elbaum et al. (2022) GRL: Narrowing climate sensitivity will not help constrain future hydroclimate changes in most regions
Mo et al. (2022) Commun Earth Environ: Atmospheric River linked to amplification of North American heatwave in 2021 through enhanced greenhouse effect from moisture t5ransport and sensible heat convergence
[See also Leach et al. EGU preprent]Steenson et al. (2022) Clim. Dyn.: Decreased urban heat island effect on precipitation in Paris and Shanghai for warmer climate linked with reduced overall summer rainfall based on regional modelling
Zeng et al. (2022) GRL: irrigation in Middle East and South Asia may increase rainfall in the Sahel-Sudan Savanna and offsetting effects of other anthropogenic climate drivers during the last several decades based on simulations
Kotz et al. (2022) Nature: effect of rainfall changes on economic production: more rainfall increases growth and more wet days decreases growth, both especially for dry regions, but heavier intense rainfall events decrease growth (how is this reconciled?)
Yang et al. (2021) GRL: modelling evidence that urbanisation execerbates rainfall over European suburbs based on case study approach
Godoy et al. (2021) Surv. Geophys.: The Global Water Cycle Budget: A Chronological Review
The African Database of Hydrometric Indices (ADHI)
Gleeson et al. (2020) One Earth: defining a new water planetary boundary consisting of sub-boundaries that account for a variety of changes to the water cycle
Marvel et al. (2020) ERL: Response of Sahel rainfall to aerosol stronger in observations than CMIP5 models but could be explained by internal variabilty while the GHG signal is consistent.
Back et al. (2019) J. Clim: Streamflow constrains on mountain rainfall underestimated by guages leads to increase in total land precipitation by 9% (a 2% increase globally)
Zhou & Nijssen (2016) J. Hydromet.: reservoir-induced seasonal storage variation is nearly 700 km3 or about 10% of the global reservoir storage.
Woolway et al. (2019) GRL: observed atmospheric stilling estimated to have contributed to 15-27% of lake warming and increased stratification
Abbott et al. (2019) Nature Geosci.: updated water cycle diagram including direct human factors
Saley et al. (2019) Atmos. Sci. Lett.: regional model experiments indicate that Sahel aforestation (deciduous needle-leaf trees replace short grass between 14.08°N and 15.84°N over the entire Sahel) will increase the number of rainy days (+9%) and the intensity of heavy rain events over the Sahel while extreme dry spells decrease (-4%).
Hora et al. (2019) GRL: Accounting for systematic data exclusion provides increasing evidence of groundwater stress in South India from 1996 to 2016.
Sprenger et al. (2019) Rev. Geophys.: Review of Water Ages in the Critical Zone
Zhou et al. (2019) GRL: total annual volume of fresh submarine groundwater discharge is ~489 km3/year, or ~1% of river discharge, about half from tropical wet equatorial regions
Luijendijk et al. (2019) Nature Comms: Coastal groundwater discharge estimated as 224 (1.4–500) km3/yr based on detailed modelling
Kusaka et al,. (2019) QJRMS: Urbanization was found to increase short duration precipitation leeward of the urban area with decreases further inland relating to slowing of the sea breeze front based on high resolution modelling.
Belen Gallego-Elvira et al. (2019) GRL: Using a novel diagnostic relating therate of land surface warming relative to the atmosphere to soil conditions and the partitioning of surface turbulent fluxes, simulations of dry spell evapotranspiration dynamics are well captured in arid zones but not in continental climate zones
Rowell (2019) GRL: Uncertainty in regional projections of the East Africa long rains were reduced by removing one model simulating unrealistical SST-cloud feedbacks in the Indian ocean.
Singh et al. (2019) WCC: Irrigation supresses land surface temperature and has been linked to a reduced strength of the India monsoon yet the magnitude of these effects relative to other external forcings is uncertain since most studies only examine the isolated effects of land cover change
Lee & Hong (2019) JGR: including salinity in ocean evaporation parametrization reduces transport of water vapor to the atmosphere, suppresses the generation of low-level cloud leading to warming near the surface and cooling in the lower troposphere and suppresses the occurrence of convective precipitation.
Fasullo et al. (2018) Nature Geosci.: Based on modelling experiments, geoengineering applying an even global distribution of sulphate aerosol to reduce the contrast in hemispheric temperature change reduces but does not remove adverse hydrological responses.
Gleeson et al. (2016) Nature Geosci.: geochemical, geologic, hydrologic and geospatial data setsare combined with numerical simulations to estimate total groundwater volume in the upper 2 km of continental crust (22.6 million km3) of which 0.1–5.0 million km3 is less than 50 years old
Kwon et al. (2014) GRL: Using an inverse model combined with a global compilation of 228Ra observations, the submarine groundwater discharge over the Atlantic and Indo-Pacific Oceans between 60oS and 70oN is 120 km3/yr +-25%
Richard P. Allan Location: Department of Meteorology (2U15)
