The INTENSE project: using observations and models to understand the past, present and future of sub-daily rainfall extremes

Blenkinsop, S., Fowler, H. J., Barbero, R., Chan, S. C., Guerreiro, S. B., Kendon, E., Lenderink, G., Lewis, E., Li, X.-F., Westra, S., Alexander, L., Allan, R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0264-9447, Berg, P., Dunn, R. J. H., Ekström, M., Evans, J. P., Holland, G., Jones, R., Kjellström, E., Klein-Tank, A., Lettenmaier, D., Mishra, V., Prein, A. F., Sheffield, J. and Tye, M. R. (2018) The INTENSE project: using observations and models to understand the past, present and future of sub-daily rainfall extremes. Advances in Science and Research, 15. pp. 117-126. ISSN 1992-0636 doi: 10.5194/asr-15-117-2018

Abstract/Summary

Historical in situ sub-daily rainfall observations are essential for the understanding of short-duration rainfall extremes but records are typically not readily accessible and data are often subject to errors and inhomogeneities. Furthermore, these events are poorly quantified in projections of future climate change making adaptation to the risk of flash flooding problematic. Consequently, knowledge of the processes contributing to intense, short-duration rainfall is less complete compared with those on daily timescales. The INTENSE project is addressing this global challenge by undertaking a data collection initiative that is coupled with advances in high-resolution climate modelling to better understand key processes and likely future change. The project has so far acquired data from over 23 000 rain gauges for its global sub-daily rainfall dataset (GSDR) and has provided evidence of an intensification of hourly extremes over the US. Studies of these observations, combined with model simulations, will continue to advance our understanding of the role of local-scale thermodynamics and large-scale atmospheric circulation in the generation of these events and how these might change in the future.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/77802
Identification Number/DOI	10.5194/asr-15-117-2018
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Department of Meteorology
Publisher	European Meteorological Society
Download/View statistics	View download statistics for this item