Response of Vertical Velocities in Extratropical Precipitation Extremes to Climate Change

TL;DR

This study investigates how vertical velocities in extratropical precipitation extremes change under climate change, revealing the dominant role of moist static stability in these dynamics through decompositions of the omega equation.

Contribution

It introduces a moist decomposition approach to better understand the physical drivers behind vertical velocity changes in precipitation extremes under climate change.

Findings

Mid-tropospheric vertical velocities strengthen in climate projections.

Moist static stability significantly influences vertical velocity changes.

Latent heating's role is crucial but complex in precipitation extremes.

Abstract

Precipitation extremes intensify in most regions in climate-model projections. Changes in vertical velocities contribute to the changes in intensity of precipitation extremes but remain poorly understood. Here, we find that mid-tropospheric vertical velocities in extratropical precipitation extremes strengthen overall in simulations of 21st-century climate change. For each extreme event, we solve the quasi-geostrophic omega equation to decompose this strengthening into different physical contributions. We first consider a dry decomposition in which latent heating is treated as an external forcing of upward motion. Much of the positive contribution to upward motion from increased latent heating is offset by negative contributions from increases in dry static stability and changes in the horizontal length scale of vertical velocities. However, taking changes in latent heating as given is a limitation when the aim is to understand changes in precipitation, since latent heating and precipitation are closely linked. Therefore, we also perform a moist decomposition of the changes in vertical velocities in which latent heating is represented through a moist static stability. In the moist decomposition, changes in moist static stability play a key role and contributions from other factors such as changes in the depth of the upward motion increase in importance. While both dry and moist decompositions are self-consistent, the moist dynamical perspective has greater potential to give insights into the causes of the dynamical contributions to changes in precipitation extremes in different regions.