Analysis of extreme rainfall events under the climatic change

by Fowler, H.J. and Haider, A.

Published in ‘Rainfall: Modeling, Measurement and Applications’

Abstract

Extreme rainfall events, ranging from short- to multi-day durations, have shown increasing trends in recent decades and are projected to intensify more in the future with global warming. Moreover, short-duration rainfall extremes are more sensitive to warming as compared to long-duration rainfall extremes. Understanding the changes to and mechanisms leading to extreme rainfall events is crucial in effective water management for decision making and policy planning. In this chapter, we review recent advances and challenges in studying the changes in observed sub-daily to multi-day rainfall extremes and their future changes based on climate model outputs. This is achieved by discussing the different methods used to study changes to rainfall extremes, understanding relationships between rainfall extremes and temperature, and using climate models to study future changes in extreme rainfall.