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Urbanization-amplified Impacts of Anthropogenic Climate Change on Extreme Precipitation and Hail in Central United States

Presentation Date
Wednesday, December 13, 2023 at 2:10pm - Wednesday, December 13, 2023 at 6:30pm
Location
MC - Poster Hall A-C - South
Authors

Author

Abstract

Extreme precipitation and hail have a significant impact on society, causing substantial economic losses and posing a threat to human lives in United States (US). Predicting their changes in future climates presents challenges due to their association with complex and intense convective storms. Therefore, enhancing our understanding of potential anthropogenic climate change (ACC) impacts on severe storms is vital for effective disaster preparedness, damage mitigation, and the development of well-informed policies. The ACC impacts are interacted with urbanization effects and there is limited understanding of it. In this study, we conducted model simulations at 2 km grid spacing for the spring season (i.e., April - June) of 2017 in the central US under both current and future climate conditions, and we analyze how the response of extreme precipitation and hail are different associated with different land cover caused by urbanization. We find that, overall, the seasonal precipitation and the occurrence of hail increases in a future warming climate, but the relative enhancements are much more pronounced for the frequency of extreme precipitation (rain rate > 40 mm hr-1; 53% increase) and the occurrences of significant severe hail (SSH; diameters > 5 cm; 49% increase). Interestingly, the enhancements of extreme precipitation and SSH are different among the urban core, periphery, and rural areas, with most significant increase occurring in the periphery area. The underlying mechanisms will also be discussed. The research findings improves our understandings of ACC imapcts on weather extremes related to surface heterogeneity, which should have important implications for risk management at fine scales.

Funding Program Area(s)
Additional Resources:
NERSC (National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center)