Extreme atmospheric rivers in a warming climate.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 37270607.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-023-38980-x and PMC identifier 10239457.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Extreme atmospheric rivers (EARs) are responsible for most of the severe precipitation and disastrous flooding along the coastal regions in midlatitudes. However, the current non-eddy-resolving climate models severely underestimate (~50%) EARs, casting significant uncertainties on their future projections. Here, using an unprecedented set of eddy-resolving high-resolution simulations from the Community Earth System Model simulations, we show that the models' ability of simulating EARs is significantly improved (despite a slight overestimate of ~10%) and the EARs are projected to increase almost linearly with temperature warming. Under the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 warming scenario, there will be a global doubling or more of the occurrence, integrated water vapor transport and precipitation associated with EARs, and a more concentrated tripling for the landfalling EARs, by the end of the 21st century. We further demonstrate that the coupling relationship between EARs and storms will be reduced in a warming climate, potentially influencing the predictability of future EARs.