Changing Spatial Structure of Summer Heavy Rainfall, Using Convection-Permitting Ensemble

Subdaily rainfall extremes have been found to intensify, both from observations and climate model simulations, but much uncertainty remains regarding future changes in the spatial structure of rainfall events. Here, future changes in the characteristics of heavy summer rainfall are analyzed by using two sets (1980-2000, 2060-2080) of 12-member 20-year-long convection-permitting ensemble simulations (2.2 km, hourly) over the UK. We investigated how the peak intensity, spatial coverage and the speed of rainfall events will change and how those changes jointly affect hourly extremes at different spatial scales. We found that in addition to the intensification of heavy rainfall events, the spatial extent tends to increase in all three subregions, and by up to 49.3% in the North-West. These changes act to exacerbate intensity increases in extremes for most of spatial scales (North: 30.2%-34.0%, South: 25.8%). The increase in areal extremes is particularly pronounced for catchments with sizes 20-500 km(2).

Automated summary

This study examined the potential future changes in subdaily rainfall extremes and found that in addition to the intensification of heavy rainfall events, the spatial extent of these events is also likely to increase, exacerbating intensity increases in extremes at various spatial scales.