Jien-Yi Tu, Chia Chou

Environmental Research Letters

Published date February 19, 2013

Changes in precipitation frequency and intensity in the vicinity of Taiwan: typhoon versus non-typhoon events

  • Uses the hourly rainfall at 21 ground stations in Taiwan to investigate changes in the frequency, intensity, and duration of rainfall, which can be divided into typhoon and non-typhoon rainfall, in the period of 1970–2010
  • Finds that the frequency of rainfall shows a decreasing trend for lighter rain and an increasing trend for heavier rain
  • Finds that the typhoon rainfall shows a significant increase for all intensities, while the non-typhoon rainfall exhibits a general trend of decreasing, particularly for lighter rain
  • Finds that in rainfall intensity, both typhoon and non-typhoon rainfall extremes become more intense, with an increased rate much greater than the Clausius–Clapeyron thermal scaling
  • Results show that rainfall extremes associated with typhoons have tended to affect Taiwan rainfall for longer in recent decades
  • Results show that the more frequent, intense and long-lasting typhoon rainfall is mainly induced by the slower translation speed of the typhoons over the neighborhood of Taiwan