Presentation Type
Oral Presentation
Start Date
5-8-2024 1:00 PM
End Date
5-8-2024 3:00 PM
Subjects
Climatology, Global Warming
Advisor
Paul Loikith
Student Level
Masters
Abstract
Extreme precipitation can cause flooding, landslides, loss of life and assets. Across the Contiguous United States (CONUS), concurrent to global warming, many communities have experienced increases in the amount of rain falling during the most extreme precipitation events and climate models project further increases for most of the CONUS. There is a need to comprehensively study the extreme precipitation climatology across the CONUS to understand what is within the observed range of extreme precipitation and the weather that drives it. Modern Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications 2 (MERRA-2) atmospheric reanalysis data for the period of 1980-2023 is used to identify days within the 95th percentile of all days with precipitation over 2mm for each grid cell (0.5° latitude by 0.625° longitude) and create radial composites for each grid cell which represent the average conditions on extreme precipitation days for key synoptic scale meteorological variables. This analysis is repeated for the four meteorological seasons and regional comparisons are made. This methodology can be applied to understanding how well climate models simulate the meteorological conditions that drive extreme precipitation.
Creative Commons License or Rights Statement
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Included in
Extreme Precipitation Climatology of the Contiguous U.S.
Extreme precipitation can cause flooding, landslides, loss of life and assets. Across the Contiguous United States (CONUS), concurrent to global warming, many communities have experienced increases in the amount of rain falling during the most extreme precipitation events and climate models project further increases for most of the CONUS. There is a need to comprehensively study the extreme precipitation climatology across the CONUS to understand what is within the observed range of extreme precipitation and the weather that drives it. Modern Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications 2 (MERRA-2) atmospheric reanalysis data for the period of 1980-2023 is used to identify days within the 95th percentile of all days with precipitation over 2mm for each grid cell (0.5° latitude by 0.625° longitude) and create radial composites for each grid cell which represent the average conditions on extreme precipitation days for key synoptic scale meteorological variables. This analysis is repeated for the four meteorological seasons and regional comparisons are made. This methodology can be applied to understanding how well climate models simulate the meteorological conditions that drive extreme precipitation.