Precipitation scaling with temperature in warm and cold climates: An analysis of CMIP5 simulations

We investigate the scaling between precipitation and temperature changes in warm and cold climates using six models that have simulated the response to both increased CO2 and Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) boundary conditions. Globally, precipitation increases in warm climates and decreases in cold climates by between 1.5%/°C and 3%/°C. Precipitation sensitivity to temperature changes is lower over the land than over the ocean and lower over the tropical land than over the extratropical land, reflecting the constraint of water availability. The wet tropics get wetter in warm climates and drier in cold climates, but the changes in dry areas differ among models. Seasonal changes of tropical precipitation in a warmer world also reflect this “rich get richer” syndrome. Precipitation seasonality is decreased in the cold‐climate state. The simulated changes in precipitation per degree temperature change are comparable to the observed changes in both the historical period and the LGM.

• Publication year

  2013

• Venue

  Geophysical Research Letters

• Publication date

  2013-08-16

• Fields of study

  Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1002/grl.50730
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

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