Chang et al. (2025) Future extreme precipitation amplified by intensified mesoscale moisture convergence

Identification

• Journal: Nature Geoscience
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-11-18
• Authors: Ping Chang, Dan Fu, Xue Liu, Frédéric Castruccio, Andreas F. Prein, Gökhan Danabasoglu, Xiaoqi Wang, Julio T. Bacmeister, Qiuying Zhang, Nan Rosenbloom, Teagan King, Susan E. Bates
• DOI: 10.1038/s41561-025-01859-1

Research Groups

• Department of Oceanography, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA
• Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA
• National Science Foundation National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA
• Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
• The Nature Conservancy, Charlottesville, VA, USA

Short Summary

This study uses high-resolution climate simulations to demonstrate that future daily extreme precipitation over land could increase by approximately 41% by 2100, primarily due to intensified mesoscale moisture convergence, a dynamic contribution underestimated by low-resolution models.

Objective

• To assess future changes in daily extreme precipitation and its drivers using high-resolution climate simulations with improved representation of mesoscale convective systems.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Global, with climate simulations at 10-to-25-kilometer resolution.
• Temporal Scale: Historical period (1920–2018/2005) and future projections (2006–2100) under high carbon dioxide emissions (RCP 8.5 and RCP 6.0 scenarios).

Methodology and Data

• Models used:
  • Community Earth System Model (CESM) in high-resolution (CESM-HR, 10-25 km) and low-resolution (CESM-LR, 100 km) configurations.
  • Multi-Object Analysis of Atmospheric Phenomena (MOAAP) program for tracking atmospheric phenomena.
• Data sources:
  • Observed precipitation data: HadEX3, IMERG V07 (GPM-IMERG dataset).
  • Reanalysis data: ECMWF ERA5.
  • Model outputs: HighResMIP, CMIP6.
  • Custom CESM-HR ensembles of historical-and-future transient climate simulations (1920–2100) released via NSF NCAR Geoscience Data Exchange (GDEX).

Main Results

• High-resolution simulations (10-25 km) more realistically capture the observed spatial distribution and intensity of daily extreme precipitation over the historical period compared to 100-kilometer resolution models.
• In a future scenario with high carbon dioxide emissions (RCP 8.5), daily extreme precipitation over land is projected to increase by approximately 41% by 2100.
• This projected increase is mainly attributed to increased mesoscale moisture convergence, a dynamic contribution.
• Low-resolution models underestimate the impact of this dynamical contribution to extreme precipitation by a factor of three.

Contributions

• Provides an unprecedented ensemble of high-resolution climate simulations (10-25 km) that more accurately represent extreme precipitation-generating phenomena.
• Quantifies the significant role of intensified mesoscale moisture convergence as a primary driver for future extreme precipitation amplification.
• Highlights the critical importance of high-resolution climate modeling for robust future extreme precipitation projections and improved climate risk assessments, demonstrating the limitations of lower-resolution models in capturing key dynamic processes.

Funding

• US National Science Foundation (NSF) grant AGS-2231237 (MESACLIP project)
• Gulf Research Program of the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine grant 2000013283 (iPOGS project)
• NSF grant AGS-2332469
• US Department of Commerce through NOAA OAR Climate Variability and Predictability Program grant NA24OARX431G0047
• The Nature Conservancy
• Research Council of Norway (project number 301777, FRONTIER Project for MOAPP Algorithm development)
• NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) under cooperative agreement number 1852977

Citation

@article{Chang2025Future,
  author = {Chang, Ping and Fu, Dan and Liu, Xue and Castruccio, Frédéric and Prein, Andreas F. and Danabasoglu, Gökhan and Wang, Xiaoqi and Bacmeister, Julio T. and Zhang, Qiuying and Rosenbloom, Nan and King, Teagan and Bates, Susan E.},
  title = {Future extreme precipitation amplified by intensified mesoscale moisture convergence},
  journal = {Nature Geoscience},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.1038/s41561-025-01859-1},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-025-01859-1}
}