Science Source

Xuebin Zhang, Hui Wan, Francis W. Zwiers, Gabriele C. Hegerl, Seung‐Ki Min

Geophysical Research Letters

Published date October 9, 2013

Attributing intensification of precipitation extremes to human influence

Provides estimates of the human contribution to the observed widespread intensification of precipitation extremes
Considers the annual maxima of daily (RX1day) and 5 day consecutive (RX5day) precipitation amounts over the Northern Hemisphere land area for 1951–2005
Compares observed changes with expected responses to external forcings as simulated by multiple coupled climate models participating in Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5
Detects the effect of anthropogenic forcings in extreme precipitation observations, both individually and when simultaneously estimating anthropogenic and naturally forced changes
Finds that the effect of natural forcings is not detectable
Estimates that human influence has intensified annual maximum 1 day precipitation in sampled Northern Hemisphere locations by 3.3% [1.1% to 5.8%, >90% confidence interval] on average
Concludes that this corresponds to an average intensification in RX1day of 5.2% [1.3%, 9.3%] per degree increase in observed global mean surface temperature consistent with the Clausius‐Clapeyron relationship