Atmospheric Rivers Bring More Frequent and Intense Extreme Rainfall Events Over East Asia Under Global Warming

Portions of East Asia often experienced extremely heavy rainfall events over the last decade. Intense atmospheric rivers (ARs), eddy transports of moisture over the middle latitudes, contributed significantly to these events. Although previous studies pointed out that landfalling ARs will become more frequent under global warming, the extent to which ARs produce extreme rainfall over East Asia in a warmer climate remains unclear. Here we evaluate changes in the frequency and intensity of AR-related extreme heavy rainfall under global warming using a set of high-resolution global and regional atmospheric simulations. We find that both the AR-related water vapor transport and rainfall intensify over the southern and western slopes of mountains over East Asia in a warmer climate. ARs are responsible for a large fraction of the increase in the occurrence of extreme rainfall in boreal spring and summer. ARs will bring unprecedented extreme rainfall over East Asia under global warming.

Automated summary

The study found that with global warming, the water vapor transport and rainfall related to ARs will intensify over the southern and western slopes of mountains in East Asia. ARs are responsible for a significant increase in the occurrence of extreme rainfall in boreal spring and summer in the Northern Hemisphere.