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Title: Contributions of Climate Change and ENSO Variability to Future Precipitation Extremes Over California

Journal Article · · Geophysical Research Letters
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2]
  1. National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, CO (United States); OSTI
  2. Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)
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The El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) affects the occurrence frequency and intensity of extreme precipitation through modulations of regional heat and moisture fluxes. California experiences particularly strong ENSO influences and models project different to its extreme precipitation. It remains unclear how diverse projections of future precipitation extremes relate to inter-model differences for those changing signals. Here, we use “large ensemble” simulations with multiple climate models along with the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 to investigate the range of precipitation extreme changes over California and the influences from ENSO-related teleconnections. We found that precipitation amount increases are much larger during El Niño relative to La Niña years, mainly caused by the differences in frequency of extreme events during different phases. The ENSO-driven effect is even larger than the overall climate change signal for the most extreme events, implying uncertainties from inter-model differences in ENSO-related SST variability for extreme precipitation changes.

Research Organization:
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0019418
OSTI ID:
2421284
Journal Information:
Geophysical Research Letters, Journal Name: Geophysical Research Letters Journal Issue: 12 Vol. 50; ISSN 0094-8276
Publisher:
American Geophysical Union (AGU)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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