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  • Review Article
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Anthropogenic intensification of short-duration rainfall extremes

Nature Reviews Earth & Environment volume 2, pages 107–122 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

Short-duration (1–3 h) rainfall extremes can cause serious damage to societies through rapidly developing (flash) flooding and are determined by complex, multifaceted processes that are altering as Earth’s climate warms. In this Review, we examine evidence from observational, theoretical and modelling studies for the intensification of these rainfall extremes, the drivers and the impact on flash flooding. Both short-duration and long-duration (>1 day) rainfall extremes are intensifying with warming at a rate consistent with the increase in atmospheric moisture (~7% K−1), while in some regions, increases in short-duration extreme rainfall intensities are stronger than expected from moisture increases alone. These stronger local increases are related to feedbacks in convective clouds, but their exact role is uncertain because of the very small scales involved. Future extreme rainfall intensification is also modulated by changes to temperature stratification and large-scale atmospheric circulation. The latter remains a major source of uncertainty. Intensification of short-duration extremes has likely increased the incidence of flash flooding at local scales, and this can further compound with an increase in storm spatial footprint to considerably increase total event rainfall. These findings call for urgent climate change adaptation measures to manage increasing flood risks.

Key points

  • Heavy rainfall extremes are intensifying with warming at a rate generally consistent with the increase in atmospheric moisture, for accumulation periods from hours to days.

  • In some regions, high-resolution modelling, observed trends and observed temperature dependencies indicate stronger increases in short-duration, sub-daily, extreme rainfall intensities, up to twice what would be expected from atmospheric moisture increases alone.

  • Stronger local increases in short-duration extreme rainfall intensities are related to convective cloud feedbacks, but their relevance to climate change is uncertain, owing to modulation by changes to temperature stratification and large-scale atmospheric circulation.

  • It is unclear whether storm size will increase or decrease with warming; however, increases in rainfall intensity and the spatial footprint of a storm can compound to substantially increase the total rainfall during an event.

  • Evidence is emerging that sub-daily rainfall intensification is related to an intensification of flash flooding, at least locally. This intensification will have serious implications for flash flooding globally and requires urgent climate change adaptation measures.

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Fig. 1: The Global Sub-Daily Rainfall data set.
Fig. 2: Temperature scaling of rainfall intensities.
Fig. 3: Influence of accounting for humidity effects and rain types on the apparent scaling of high-percentile extreme rainfall.
Fig. 4: Summary of existing knowledge of observed changes in the frequency and/or intensity of sub-daily rainfall extremes.
Fig. 5: Climate change-induced changes in extreme convective sub-daily precipitation processes.
Fig. 6: Important processes driving changes in sub-daily extreme precipitation and flooding.

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Acknowledgements

H.J.F., G.L., R.B., S.B., S.G. and E.L. have been supported by the European Research Council (INTENSE; grant no. ERC-2013-CoG-617329). H.J.F. and S.B. are also supported by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (FUTURE-STORMS, NE/R01079X/1). H.J.F. is funded by the Wolfson Foundation and the Royal Society through a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award (grant no. WM140025). The National Center for Atmospheric Research is sponsored by the US National Science Foundation. E.J.K. is supported by the Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme funded by the UK Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy and the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (grant no. GA01101). R.P.A. acknowledges the ERA4CS INDECIS project funded by the European Union (grant no. 690462). J.O.H. gratefully acknowledges funding from the Villum Foundation (grant no. 13168), the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme (grant no. 771859) and the Novo Nordisk Foundation Interdisciplinary Synergy Program (grant no. NNF19OC0057374). G.V. acknowledges funding from the US Army Corps of Engineers’ Institute for Water Resources (IWR).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Engineering, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

    Hayley J. Fowler, Stephen Blenkinsop, Selma Guerreiro & Elizabeth Lewis

  2. Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, De Bilt, Netherlands

    Geert Lenderink

  3. National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, CO, USA

    Andreas F. Prein

  4. School of Civil, Environmental and Mining Engineering, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

    Seth Westra

  5. Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Reading, UK

    Richard P. Allan

  6. National Centre for Earth Observation, University of Reading, Reading, UK

    Richard P. Allan

  7. Department of Atmospheric and Cryospheric Sciences, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

    Nikolina Ban

  8. National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment, RECOVER, Aix-en-Provence, France

    Renaud Barbero

  9. Hydrology Research Unit, Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, Norrköping, Sweden

    Peter Berg

  10. School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Hong X. Do

  11. Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources, Nong Lam University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

    Hong X. Do

  12. Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Jan O. Haerter

  13. Complexity and Climate, Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research, Bremen, Germany

    Jan O. Haerter

  14. Physics & Earth Sciences, Jacobs University Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Jan O. Haerter

  15. Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, UK

    Elizabeth J. Kendon

  16. Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Sciences, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

    Christoph Schaer

  17. School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Ashish Sharma

  18. IIHR – Hydroscience & Engineering, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA

    Gabriele Villarini

  19. Department of Infrastructure Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Conrad Wasko

  20. Climate Research Division, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Toronto, Canada

    Xuebin Zhang

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Contributions

H.J.F. led the writing of the manuscript, the figure contributions and coordinated all contributions. G.L. led the section on temperature scaling and designed Fig. 2. A.F.P. led the review of convection-permitting modelling and designed Fig. 5. S.W. led the section on flood hazard. E.L. designed Fig. 1, R.P.A. designed Fig. 6, S.B. designed Fig. 4, and P.B. and J.O.H. designed Fig. 3. All authors discussed the content and contributed to the writing of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Hayley J. Fowler.

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Nature Reviews Earth & Environment thanks J. Nie, S.-K. Min and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Fowler, H.J., Lenderink, G., Prein, A.F. et al. Anthropogenic intensification of short-duration rainfall extremes. Nat Rev Earth Environ 2, 107–122 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-020-00128-6

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