Identification

Title

Generalized additive modelling of daily precipitation extremes and their climatic drivers

Abstract

Detection of changes in climate responses is essential to facilitate appropriate adaptation actions to be taken by decision makers, particularly where changes in the arrival rate and intensity of extreme daily precipitation event may lead to high impact flooding. Long established hydrological practice may no longer be appropriate if these changes are significant over the engineering design life. While extreme daily precipitation events are known to be seasonally over-dispersed, the dependent relationship between events is often ignored. Many statistical representations also explicitly ignore the complex relationships which exist between seasonality, atmospheric variables and extreme event frequency; thus a robust statistical tool is required to test the significance of any changes. This paper presents the construction of a Vector Generalized Additive Model (VGAM) to characterize the inter-annual variability of extreme daily precipitation event frequency, and their associated magnitude, and so test the significance of changes in the temporal pattern of frequency and intensity. The modeling technique is one which could be applied in many regions of the world, but was specifically focused on an application to UK extreme daily precipitation. The seasonal behavior of daily extreme precipitation and its dependence on sea surface temperatures (SST), air temperature range and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) were represented in flexible Generalized Extreme Value and Poisson distribution parameter estimates using VGAMs. The model was validated for the period 1961-2000, replicating well seasonal peaks in event frequency, and regional differences across the UK in event magnitude and timing. There is a strong negative correlation with monthly maximum daily air temperature range, reflecting heightened event intensity and probability when the diurnal temperature range is at its lowest. Event frequency is positively correlated with SST for all regions; while event magnitude is dependent on either SST in the south of the UK or the NAO in the northwest of the UK.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7cz36kf

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Keyword set

keyword value

EARTH SCIENCE SERVICES > MODELS > WEATHER RESEARCH/FORECAST MODELS

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > PRECIPITATION > PRECIPITATION AMOUNT

EARTH SCIENCE > CLIMATE INDICATORS > ATMOSPHERIC/OCEAN INDICATORS > EXTREME WEATHER

originating controlled vocabulary

title

U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration Global Change Master Directory

reference date

date type

revision

effective date

2021-09-17

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2013-05-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Copyright Author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata date

2023-08-18T18:07:05.285889

Metadata language

eng; USA