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Increased record-breaking precipitation events under global warming

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An Erratum to this article was published on 05 August 2015

Abstract

In the last decade record-breaking rainfall events have occurred in many places around the world causing severe impacts to human society and the environment including agricultural losses and floodings. There is now medium confidence that human-induced greenhouse gases have contributed to changes in heavy precipitation events at the global scale. Here, we present the first analysis of record-breaking daily rainfall events using observational data. We show that over the last three decades the number of record-breaking events has significantly increased in the global mean. Globally, this increase has led to 12 % more record-breaking rainfall events over 1981–2010 compared to those expected in stationary time series. The number of record-breaking rainfall events peaked in 2010 with an estimated 26 % chance that a new rainfall record is due to long-term climate change. This increase in record-breaking rainfall is explained by a statistical model which accounts for the warming of air and associated increasing water holding capacity only. Our results suggest that whilst the number of rainfall record-breaking events can be related to natural multi-decadal variability over the period from 1901 to 1980, observed record-breaking rainfall events significantly increased afterwards consistent with rising temperatures.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the Met Office Hadley Center, GHCN, and CRU for making their data available. The work was supported by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (11 II 093 Global A SIDS and LDCs), by the German research Foundation (CO994/2-1), and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (01LN1304A).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Telegrafenberg A26, 14473, Potsdam, Germany

    Jascha Lehmann, Dim Coumou & Katja Frieler

  2. University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany

    Jascha Lehmann

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  1. Jascha Lehmann
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  2. Dim Coumou
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  3. Katja Frieler
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Correspondence to Jascha Lehmann.

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Lehmann, J., Coumou, D. & Frieler, K. Increased record-breaking precipitation events under global warming. Climatic Change 132, 501–515 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-015-1434-y

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