OxTalks will soon move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events.' There will be a need for an OxTalks freeze. This was previously planned for Friday 14th November – a new date will be shared as soon as it is available (full details will be available on the Staff Gateway).
In the meantime, the OxTalks site will remain active and events will continue to be published.
If staff have any questions about the Oxford Events launch, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
Abstract: Anthropogenic forcing is expected to increase atmospheric moisture content and intensify precipitation extremes. However, extreme precipitation sensitivity to temperature is complicated by the presence of reduced or hook-shaped scaling, and the underlying physical mechanisms remain unclear. By using atmospheric reanalysis and climate model outputs, we propose a physical decomposition of extreme precipitation scaling into anthropogenic thermodynamic and dynamic components at the global scale in both historical and future climates. Interestingly, we find that anthropogenic thermodynamic terms do not always contribute to precipitation intensification, with partial components offsetting positive precipitation sensitivity to rising temperature. Large anomalies in future precipitation sensitivity are dominated by dynamic variations, with a contrast of positive anomalies over oceans and negative anomalies over land areas. Our findings reveal counteracting effects of anthropogenic thermodynamics and atmospheric dynamic controls on extreme precipitation, and underscore the importance of more detailed understanding on anthropogenic thermodynamic effects on extreme events.