Identification

Title

U.S. extreme precipitation weather types increased in frequency during the 20th century

Abstract

Extreme precipitation has increased in frequency and intensity across the Conterminous U.S. (CONUS). This trend is expected to continue under future climate change. The cause is a combination of thermodynamic (i.e., warmer temperatures increase the atmospheric moisture content) and dynamic changes (e.g., shifts in cyclone frequency and tracks). It is well-established that thermodynamic changes will intensify extreme precipitation events, but the impacts of dynamic changes are more uncertain. Extreme events are, per definition, rare and occur in unusual weather situations that are distinctly different from regular day-to-day weather. We take advantage of this and identify extreme precipitation-producing weather patterns (XWTs) for all major watersheds across the CONUS by using a novel algorithm. We show that a set of one to four XWTs per watershed are causing extreme precipitation accumulations. These XWTs can be detected based on their synoptic-scale fingerprint and are associated with West Coast atmospheric rivers, troughing in the desert Southwest, cutoff lows and troughs in the central and northwestern plains, and tropical cyclones along the Gulf and Atlantic coast. The algorithm is flexible enough to provide reliable results for city to major watershed-scales and can detect extremes that are unprecedented in the training record. Importantly, this approach allows us to assess long-term trends in extreme precipitation dynamics and reveal that XWT frequencies increased significantly in most U.S. watersheds during the 20th century indicating that changes in the atmospheric dynamics played an important role in historic extreme precipitation increases.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7j106j3

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2021-04-16T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact