Impact of Global Warming on Extreme Heavy Rainfall in the Present Climate: Case Study of Heavy Rainfall in Kinugawa, Japan (2015)

Abstract

Hazardous heavy rainfall and wide-scale inundation occurred in the Kinugawa River basin, north of Tokyo, in 2015. In this study, ensemble hindcast and non-global warming (NGW) simulations of this heavy rainfall event were implemented. In the NGW simulations, initial and boundary conditions were generated by using the outputs of natural forcing historical experiments by twelve different global climate models. The results of the hindcast and NGW simulations indicated the high likelihood of the generation of linear heavy rainfall bands and the intensification of Kinugawa heavy rainfall due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. However, in some NGW simulations, the total rainfall was greater than in the hindcast. In addition, the maximum total rainfall was greater in many NGW simulations. Lower atmospheric temperature, sea surface temperature (SST), and precipitable water content (PWC) under the initial conditions can cause less rainfall in the NGW simulations. However, some discrepancies were found in the initial conditions and simulated rainfall; less rainfall with higher atmospheric temperature, SST and PWC, and vice versa. A detailed investigation of simulated atmospheric conditions explained the simulated rainfall. These results indicate that it is not sufficient to examine climatological anomalies to understand individual extreme weather events, but that detailed simulations are useful.

Keywords

• climate change
• event attribution
• heavy rainfall
• numerical simulation
• regional weather model
• natural greenhouse gas emission