In the future, there could be a decrease in cloud cover along with an increase in cloud water content, suggesting a shift in the cloud type to more convective clouds resulting in extreme rains. It means the Indian summer monsoon season is expected to have short bursts of convective rains leading to extreme rainfall events but drier conditions for most days.
In the latest study by the University of Hyderabad (UoH) - Centre for Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (CEOAS), researchers have showed that global warming is leading to extreme climates like intensification of heavy rainfall events.
The study - ‘Precipitation Scaling in Extreme Rainfall Events and the Implications for Future Indian Monsoon: Analysis of High-Resolution Global Climate Model Simulations’ covers the topic of extreme rainfall events and their changing dynamics due to climate change at the end of the 21st century and it centres around the sensitivity of very extreme rainfall events to warmer temperatures.
Dr. Stella Jes Varghese, currently working as a Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) national post-doctoral fellow at CEOAS carried out the research under the mentorship of Ashok Karumuri. It is also collaborative research involving scientists from CSIR Fourth Paradigm Institute, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay and Meteorological Research Institute (MRI), Japan, including Sajani Surendran, Kavirajan Rajendran, Subimal Ghosh and Akio Kitoh
The study analysed the impact of climate change on the water-holding capacity of the atmosphere and found that warming exacerbates the intensity of rain events. The scaling of extreme rainfall with temperature showed a clear shift in the peak temperature suggesting more very extreme rainfall events.
The research anticipates that the altered radiative forcing due to global warming will not only heat the upper atmosphere but also stabilise it, offsetting the effect of increased humidity on precipitation intensity.
Researchers utilised outputs from both present-day climate simulations and future climate change projection experiments using a high-resolution global climate model of Japan. They pointed out that the intricate relationship between changes in temperature, humidity and extreme rainfall events has been established in the study.
Hence, understanding the dynamics of extreme rainfall events is crucial for climate adaptation and mitigation strategies. Findings from the study emphasise the need for proactive measures to address the potential impacts of climate change on precipitation extremes.
The current study utilised model outputs from a single climate model and Further work needs to be done by incorporating runs from different high-resolution models for a more robust result, said an official release on Tuesday.
The study was published in the latest issue of Geophysical Research Letters (https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023GL105680#main1), added researchers.
