de Vries et al. (2025) Precipitation disaster hotspots depend on historical climate variability

⚠️ Warning: This summary was generated from the abstract only, as the full text was not available.

Identification

• Journal: Repository for Publications and Research Data (ETH Zurich)
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-11-29
• Authors: de Vries, Iris, Schillinger, Maybritt, Fischer, Erich, Sippel, Sebastian, Knutti, Reto
• DOI: 10.3929/ethz-c-000791914

Research Groups

Not specified in the provided text.

Short Summary

This study reveals that historical precipitation variability influences current and future record-breaking precipitation probabilities, identifying regions with low current records as most at risk, while climate change disproportionately increases risk in regions with high current records.

Objective

• To demonstrate how historical precipitation variability shapes current and future probabilities of record-breaking precipitation events and how climate change modifies these patterns.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Global to regional.
• Temporal Scale: Historical to mid-century (up to 2050).

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Not specified in the provided text. (Implied climate model projections, e.g., SSP2-4.5 scenario)
• Data sources: Not specified in the provided text. (Implied historical precipitation observations)

Main Results

• Historical variability significantly shapes current and future record-breaking precipitation probabilities, indicating that regions with low current records are inherently more at risk.
• Climate change modifies this pattern non-linearly; a moderate climate change scenario (SSP2-4.5) leads to an average increase in record-breaking probability of 40% by 2050.
• Regions with high current records are most sensitive to climate change, experiencing the steepest increase in record-breaking probability, up to 75%.
• Disaster risk is further amplified by low preparedness, particularly when the last record-breaking event occurred long ago, and by high vulnerability due to poverty and rapid urbanization in many regions.

Contributions

• Quantifies the non-linear interaction between historical precipitation records and climate change impacts on future extreme precipitation probabilities.
• Identifies specific regional vulnerabilities based on their historical record levels, highlighting that regions with low current records are most at risk, but those with high records see the steepest risk increase.
• Emphasizes the compounding effect of low disaster preparedness and high socio-economic vulnerability on overall disaster risk from record-breaking precipitation events.

Funding

Not specified in the provided text.

Citation

@article{deVries2025Precipitation,
  author = {de Vries, Iris and Schillinger, Maybritt and Fischer, Erich and Sippel, Sebastian and Knutti, Reto},
  title = {Precipitation disaster hotspots depend on historical climate variability},
  journal = {Repository for Publications and Research Data (ETH Zurich)},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.3929/ethz-c-000791914},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-c-000791914}
}