Assessing the Effect of Global Warming on Rainfall Extremes in Taiwan
Date Issued
2011
Date
2011
Author(s)
Chang, Jen-Hao
Abstract
The effects of global warming on frequency and intensities of extreme storm events have been demonstrated by many catastrophic events in recent years. This study aims to assess the effect of global warming on rainfall extremes in Taiwan using fifty years (1961 – 2010) of daily rainfall data collected at 15 rainfall stations around Taiwan.
Rainfall extremes, or the top 10% bin rainfalls, of islandwide-average and station-specific daily rainfalls were defined by threshold daily rainfalls which were determined by a cumulative rainfall approach. Yearly top 10% rainfall percentages were then calculated based on yearly rainfall extremes.
In this study, changes in the top 10% rainfall percentages and changes in the global mean temperatures were found to be characterized by a bivariate normal distribution. Thus, the effect of global warming on changes in the top 10% rainfall percentages can be stochastically assessed based on the conditional normal distribution. It was found that, under one degree increase of global mean temperature, the probability of having a super Clausius-Clapeyron rate of change in the top 10% rainfall percentage for the islandwide-average daily rainfalls equals 0.82. Similar analyses using station-specific daily rainfalls also showed that most stations are likely to experience super Clausius-Clapeyron rate of change in the top 10% rainfall percentages, except those stations located in central Taiwan and west of the Central Mountain Range.
Subjects
Climate change
Clausius-Clapeyron equation
Rainfall extreme
Bivariate normal distribution
Type
thesis
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