Current Changes in Tropical Precipitation

Richard P. AllanDepartment of Meteorology, University of Reading

Thanks to Brian Soden, Viju John, William Ingram, Peter Good, Igor Zveryaev, Mark Ringer and Tony Slingo

http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/~sgs02rpa r.p.allan@reading.ac.uk

• Increased Precipitation• More Intense Rainfall• More droughts• Wet regions get wetter, dry

regions get drier?• Regional projections??

Precipitation Change (%)

Climate model projections (IPCC 2007)

Precipitation Intensity

Dry Days

Trenberth et al. (2009) BAMS

Physical basis: energy balance

• Radiative Convective balance– Enhanced radiative cooling (Allen and Ingram, 2002)

– Water vapour key: conserve RH, MALR (Stephens et al 94)

– Modulated by GHG/aerosol forcings: fast and slow responses (Andrews et al. 2009 JGR; Dong et al. 2009 J Clim)

– High cloud feedback(Lebsock et al. 2010 J Clim)

Temperature-dependent responses (2-3%/K)

CO2 increases mute the transient response somewhat (Andrews et al. 2010 ERL; Wu et al. 2010 GRL)

Physical basis: water vapour

1979-2002• Clausius-Clapeyron

– Low-level water vapour (~7%/K)– Intensification of rainfall O’Gorman &

Schneider, 2009 PNAS– Moisture transport: enhanced P-E Held & Soden

2006 J Clim

• Radiative/thermodynamic constraints:– Wet get wetter, dry regions gets drier– Reduced mass flux: declining Walker circulation

(Vecchi and Soden, 2006)

P~Mq

Wat

er v

apou

r (m

m)

Temperature (K)

Pre

cip.

(%

)

Allan and Soden (2008) Science

Observed increase in water vapour and precipitation with warming

Tropical ocean column water vapour constrained by Clausius Clapeyron

…despite inaccurate mean state, Pierce et al.; John and Soden (both GRL, 2006)

…decreases in RH over land? (Simonds et al. 2009 JGR; see also Joshi et al. 08)

Reanalyses struggle to capture decadal changes in the water cycle.

- see also Trenberth et al. (2005) Clim. Dyn., Soden et al. (2005) Science

John et al. (2009)

models

Wat

er V

apou

r (m

m)

Contrasting precipitation response in wet and dry regions of the tropical circulation

Updated from Allan and Soden (2007) GRL

descent

ascentModelsObservations

Pre

cipi

tatio

n ch

ange

(%

)

Sensitivity to reanalysis dataset used to define wet/dry regions

Is the contrasting wet/dry response robust?

• Large uncertainty in magnitude of change: satellite datasets and models & time period

TRMM

GPCP Ascent Region Precipitation (mm/day)

John et al. (2009) GRL

• Robust response: wet regions become wetter at the expense of dry regions. Is this an artefact of the reanalyses?

Precipitation changes in wettest 30% and driest 70% of grid boxes

• Wet/dry trends remain– 1979-1987 GPCP

record may be suspect for dry region

– SSM/I dry region record: inhomogeneity 2000/01?

• GPCP trends 1988-2008

– Wet: 1.8%/decade– Dry: -2.6%/decade– Upper range of model

trend magnitudes

Models

DR

Y

WE

T

Increases in the frequency of the heaviest rainfall with warming: daily data from models and microwave satellite data (SSM/I)

Allan et al. (2010) Environ. Res. Lett.Reduced frequency Increased frequency

• Increase in intense rainfall with tropical ocean warming (close to Clausius Clapeyron)

• SSM/I satellite observations at upper limit of model range

Model intense precipitation constrained by moist adiabatic lapse rate; responses highly sensitive to model-specific changes in upward velocities (O’Gorman &Schneider, 2009, PNAS; Gastineau & Soden 2009; Turner and Slingo, 2009 ASL).

• Observations and simple physics help to confirm robust model projections– Increased precipitation (~2%/K)– Increased precipitation intensity (~7%/K)– Extratropics and wet regions of tropics get wetter– Dry regions of sub-tropics get drier– Transient response to GHG stabilisation

• Outstanding Issues– Inaccurate simulation of precipitation events– Limitations of satellite and gauge data– Detecting and attributing signals– Cloud Feedback– Aerosol

Implications

END

Add in more about obs.

• Add links to:– Lebsock et al. (2010) J Clim [rad/conv balance and feedback from

obs]; Previdi (2010) ERL– Wu et al (2010) GRL; Andrews et al. (2010) ERL – transient changes in

models– Enhanced moisture transport (dry to wet regions of tropics; tropics to

extra-tropics) Held and Soden (2006) and implications for wet/dry region precipitation (Chou et al. 2007 GRL)

– Clausius Clapeyron contraint on intense precipitation (e.g. O’Gorman and Schneider 2009 PNAS; Allan and Soden 2008 Science; Lenderink and van Mijgaard 2010 ERL)

– Changes in surface evaporation (Richter and Xie 2008 JGR); declining pan evaporation trends and wind speed (Roderick et al. 2007 GRL)

– Large-scale tropical circulation weakening (Vecchi and Soden, 2007 Nature) and variability (Park and Sohn, 2010 JGR in press)

Thermodynamic constraint

1979-2002• Clausius-Clapeyron

– Low-level water vapour (~7%/K)– Intensification of rainfall: Trenberth et al. (2003) BAMS; Pall et al.

(2007) Clim Dyn

• Changes in intense rainfall also constrained by moist adiabat -O’Gorman and Schneider (2009) PNAS

• Could extra latent heat release within storms enhance rainfall intensity above Clausius Clapeyron?– e.g. Lenderink and van Meijgaard (2008) Nature Geoscience

Top: GFDL cm2.1 2080-2099 minus 1980-1999 (% precipitation)

Bottom: GFDL-GPCP precipitation (%)

What do we expect?

• Surface and atmosphere energy balance constraint (Allen and Ingram, 2002; Stephens and Ellis, 2008; Lambert and Webb, 2008, Andrews et al. 2009)

• Moisture transport constraint (Held and Soden, 2006)• Moisture convergence constraint (O’Gorman and

Schneider, 2009; Lenderink and Van Meijgaard, 2008)• Mass flux and moist adiabat arguments (e.g. Vecchi and

Soden, 2007; Held and Soden, 2006)• Negative impact of greenhouse gases on transient

precipitation response (Andrews et al. 2009; Wu et al. 2010)

• See also special focus issue of Environmental Research Letters (No. 2, April-June 2010)

Observations

• Daily estimates of column water vapour and precipitation from microwave retrievals (SSM/I) 1987-2009 (e.g. Wentz et al. 2007 Science) and TRMM (1998-present) microwave and radar

• Blended precipitation from infra-red and microwave radiance and rain gauge, Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP; Huffman et al. (2009) GRL: monthly (1979-2009) and daily (1997-2009)

• CERES Earth Radiation Budget measurements (2000-2006); ISCCP-based estimates (1983-2006)

“Muted” precip response achieved through reduced Walker circulation (mass flux)

Enhanced moisture flux

Enhanced rainfall intensity: MALR scaling

Enhanced tropical to extra-tropical moisture flux

Enhanced tropical to extra-tropical moisture flux

Enhanced moisture flux from dry to wet regions of tropics

Global precipitation changes constrained by radiative cooling

“Muted” evaporation through subtle changes in BL

Reduced rainfall intensity and/or frequency

Can we observe changes in atmospheric radiative heating/cooling?

Changes in atmospheric longwave radiative radiative cooling (Wm-2)

models

John et al. (2009) GRL

Avoid reanalyses in defining wet/dry

regions

• Sample grid boxes:– 30% wettest– 70% driest

• Do wet/dry trends remain?