Providing Regional Climate Services to British Columbia

You are here

Observed changes in precipitation extremes and their attribution at the global, continental, and regional scales

Warning message

Submissions for this form are closed.
Presenter: 
Dr. Qiaohong Sun
When: 
October 27, 2021 - 3:00pm to 4:00pm
Where: 

This talk will be held over Zoom Meetings. Please use the details, below.

Meeting URL: https://uvic.zoom.us/j/85235772911?pwd=OEp0cmRPRTVhb3lSSVBQbHZwekpZQT09

Meeting ID: 852 3577 2911
Password: 328957

Precipitation extremes can cause severe impacts on society and are relevant to the design of infrastructure. This presentation will provide an overview of observed changes in precipitation extremes and their attribution at the global, continental, and regional scales. First, statistical analyses of thousands of high-quality observing stations across the globe show precipitation extremes have intensified with the change rate consistent with Clausius-Clapeyron. Second, a growing number of attribution studies has substantially increased our confidence that changes in precipitation extremes are the result of human influence on the climate, globally and at continental scales. This includes evidence from a very recent study with a novel detection and attribution analysis method that considers observed changes in annual maximum 1-day and 5-day precipitation amounts at Rx1day and Rx5day at individual stations. Nevertheless, intensification is not observed in all IPCC regions, and can only be detected in some regions. Anthropogenic influence is estimated to have substantially decreased the waiting time between extreme events, which has important implications for infrastructure design and climate change adaptation policy.

Bio:
Dr. Qiaohong Sun is a Post-Doctoral Scientist with PCIC. She is conducting research on the physical processes affecting precipitation extremes for short (sub‐daily) accumulation periods and their possible changes. Qiaohong’s research interests include the uncertainty of climate observations, the detection and attribution of hydrologic and climatic extremes, and the influences of air-sea interactions. Qiaohong earned her PhD (2018) and MSc (2015) from Beijing Normal University.