Precipitation extremes are expected to increase in a warming climate; thus, it is essential to characterize their potential future changes.
In a new study recently published on Geophysical Research Letters, a team of scientists (among them, CMCC researchers M. Zampieri, E. Scoccimarro, S. Gualdi from SERC Division) evaluated eight high-resolution global climate model simulations in the twentieth century while providing new evidence on projected global precipitation extremes for the 21st century.
According to results, a significant intensification of daily extremes for all seasons is projected for the middle and high latitudes of both hemispheres at the end of the present century. For the subtropics and tropics, the lack of reliable and consistent estimations found for both the historical and future simulations might be connected with model deficiencies in the representation of organized convective systems.

Read the integral version of the paper:

Toreti A., Naveau P., Zampieri M., Schindler A., Scoccimarro E., Xoplaki E., Dijkstra H. A., Gualdi S., Luterbacher J.
Projections of global changes in precipitation extremes from CMIP5 models
2013, Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 40, Issue 18, pages 4887–4892, DOI: 10.1002/grl.50940