TY - JOUR
T1 - Contribution of climatic changes in mean and variability to monthly temperature and precipitation extremes
AU - van der Wiel, Karin
AU - Bintanja, Richard
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors thank the individual modelling groups for their efforts in producing the transient large ensembles experiments, and the US CLIVAR Working Group on Large Ensembles for collecting and making available the ensemble data. We are grateful to the EC-Earth consortium for their contribution to the development of the Earth System Model EC-Earth. Acknowledgment is made for the use of ECMWF’s computing and archive facilities in this research. We thank Peter Pfleiderer for sharing the code to produce Fig. and all similar figures. This work is part of the HiWAVES3 project, for which funding was supplied by the Netherlands Organisation of Scientific Research (NWO) under Grant Number ALWCL.2 016.2. HiWAVES3 was funded under a joint JPI Climate-Belmont Forum call (2015).
Funding Information:
The authors thank the individual modelling groups for their efforts in producing the transient large ensembles experiments, and the US CLIVAR Working Group on Large Ensembles for collecting and making available the ensemble data. We are grateful to the EC-Earth consortium for their contribution to the development of the Earth System Model EC-Earth. Acknowledgment is made for the use of ECMWF’s computing and archive facilities in this research. We thank Peter Pfleiderer for sharing the code to produce Fig. 4 and all similar figures. This work is part of the HiWAVES3 project, for which funding was supplied by the Netherlands Organisation of Scientific Research (NWO) under Grant Number ALWCL.2 016.2. HiWAVES3 was funded under a joint JPI Climate-Belmont Forum call (2015).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s).
PY - 2021/12
Y1 - 2021/12
N2 - The frequency of climate extremes will change in response to shifts in both mean climate and climate variability. These individual contributions, and thus the fundamental mechanisms behind changes in climate extremes, remain largely unknown. Here we apply the probability ratio concept in large-ensemble climate simulations to attribute changes in extreme events to either changes in mean climate or climate variability. We show that increased occurrence of monthly high-temperature events is governed by a warming mean climate. In contrast, future changes in monthly heavy-precipitation events depend to a considerable degree on trends in climate variability. Spatial variations are substantial however, highlighting the relevance of regional processes. The contributions of mean and variability to the probability ratio are largely independent of event threshold, magnitude of warming and climate model. Hence projections of temperature extremes are more robust than those of precipitation extremes, since the mean climate is better understood than climate variability.
AB - The frequency of climate extremes will change in response to shifts in both mean climate and climate variability. These individual contributions, and thus the fundamental mechanisms behind changes in climate extremes, remain largely unknown. Here we apply the probability ratio concept in large-ensemble climate simulations to attribute changes in extreme events to either changes in mean climate or climate variability. We show that increased occurrence of monthly high-temperature events is governed by a warming mean climate. In contrast, future changes in monthly heavy-precipitation events depend to a considerable degree on trends in climate variability. Spatial variations are substantial however, highlighting the relevance of regional processes. The contributions of mean and variability to the probability ratio are largely independent of event threshold, magnitude of warming and climate model. Hence projections of temperature extremes are more robust than those of precipitation extremes, since the mean climate is better understood than climate variability.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85103958268&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s43247-020-00077-4
DO - 10.1038/s43247-020-00077-4
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85103958268
SN - 2662-4435
VL - 2
JO - Communications Earth and Environment
JF - Communications Earth and Environment
IS - 1
M1 - 1
ER -