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This study provides an updated analysis of the evolution of seasonal rainfall intensity in the Amazon basin, considering the 1981–2017 period and based on HOP (interpolated HYBAM observed precipitation) and CHIRPS (The Climate Hazards Group Infrared Precipitation with Stations) rainfall data sets. Dry and wet day frequencies as well as extreme percentiles are used in this analysis, producing the same results. Dry-day frequency (DDF) significantly increases in the Southern Amazon (p < 0.01), particularly during September–November (SON) in the Bolivian Amazon, central Peruvian Amazon and far southern Brazilian Amazon. Consistently, total rainfall in the southern Amazon during SON also shows a significant diminution (p < 0.05), estimated at 18%. The increase in SON DDF in the southern Amazon is related to a warming of the northern tropical Atlantic Ocean and a weakening of water vapour flux from the tropical Atlantic Ocean. The increase in DDF in the southern Amazon is related to enhanced wind subsidence (ascendance) over the 10°S–20°S (5°S–5°N) region and to a deficit (excess) of specific humidity at 1000–300 hPa south of 10°S (north of the 5°S), which suggest a reduction of deep convection over southern Amazonia. Subsidence over the southern Amazon shows a significant trend (p < 0.01), which can explain the significant increase in DDF. Wet-day frequency (WDF) significantly increases in the northern Amazon, particularly during the March–May (MAM) period (p < 0.01), producing an estimated rainfall increase during MAM of 17% (p < 0.01) between 1981 and 2017. Significant changes in both WDF and rainfall in northern Amazon have been detected in 1998 (p < 0.01). After 1998, the increase in MAM WDF and rainfall is explained by enhanced moisture flux from the tropical North Atlantic Ocean and an increase in deep convection over the northern and northwestern Amazon. These evolutions in DDF and WDF and in the tropical atmosphere occur simultaneously with an increase in sea surface temperature in the northern Atlantic Ocean, particularly after the mid-1990s. These results provide new insight into rainfall variability and climatic features related to increasing dry season length in southern Amazonia. Severe recent droughts may be associated with the increase in DDF in the South. In addition, the increase in MAM rainfall intensity in northern Amazon after 1998 may be associated with several historical floods that occurred after this date.

Rainfall during the monsoon in northwest Australia has increased since the 1950s. Previous studies have explored possible causes of the rainfall increase; however, the trend has not been fully explained. Understanding the cause of this trend is important for interpreting climate projections and local water‐sensitive services. We explore the role of the Madden‐Julian Oscillation (MJO) in explaining the rainfall increase. The MJO, since 1974, has had a longer duration in phases associated with enhanced rainfall in northwest Australia (Phases 5 and 6) during the monsoon. We show that the rainfall trend in northwest Australia is identified only during MJO phases associated with enhanced rainfall, with a large change in daily rainfall distribution in these phases. The increasing occurrence of these MJO phases explains most of the rainfall increase, as opposed to an increase in daily rainfall independent of MJO phase, albeit with some sensitivity to MJO definition. Plain Language Summary Rainfall during the monsoon in northwest Australia has been increasing since the 1950s. In this study, we explore if a semi‐periodic pulse of rainfall and clouds near the equator, known as the Madden‐Julian Oscillation (MJO), may be related to the increased rainfall in the northwest. This pulse of clouds has been found, since 1974, to be spending longer periods of time over northwest Australia. We observed that the increase in MJO duration over northern Australia leads to increasing rainfall in northwest Australia. Key Points Rainfall in northwest Australia has been increasing since the 1950s, and the cause of this trend has so far remained unexplained The Madden‐Julian Oscillation (MJO) has also been increasingly occurring in phases associated with increased rainfall over northern Australia The increase in MJO convective phases over northern Australia explains most of the increase in rainfall since 1974 in northwest Australia

Australia is one of the regions strongly affected by the El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The recent 2020–2023 La Niña event was marked by record‐breaking rainfall and flooding across eastern Australia. The continuous wet conditions during the triple La Niña motivated us to explore the impacts of single‐year and multi‐year ENSO events on Australian rainfall using observational data sets. We find that, while there is no difference in the rainfall impacts during single or double El Niño events, Australian rainfall tends to increase in the third year of triple La Niña events compared to the first and second years. The enhanced rainfall impact during the third La Niña year occurs despite no strengthening of La Niña in the tropical Pacific, suggesting that other processes such as local rainfall‐soil moisture feedback may play a role in prolonging the effects of multi‐year La Niña events in Australia. Plain Language Summary Australia is strongly affected by the El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO), with rainfall more likely to increase during La Niña and below‐average rainfall more common during El Niño. The recent 2020–2023 multi‐year La Niña was marked by continuous wet conditions across eastern Australia, leading to record‐breaking rainfall and flooding. Multi‐year La Niña events, where La Niña occurs in two or three consecutive austral summers, happened in about 50% of all La Niña events, including five triple La Niña events since 1900. We explored the impacts of multi‐year ENSO events on Australian rainfall and found that, while there is no difference in the rainfall impacts during single or double El Niño events, rainfall tends to increase in the third year of triple La Niña events compared to the first and second years. This rainfall increase occurs despite no strengthening of La Niña in the tropical Pacific Ocean, suggesting that local processes such as feedback between high/saturated soil moisture and rainfall may play a role in prolonging the effects of multi‐year La Niña events in Australia. Key Points Eastern Australia tends to experience record‐breaking rainfall and flooding during La Niña events Rainfall impact of multi‐year El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO) persists during double and triple events, despite no strengthening of ENSO Australian rainfall increases in the third year of triple La Niña likely due to soil moisture‐rainfall feedback

In this paper, an investigation of the temporal rainfall variability in the South Island of New Zealand has been carried out using a high-quality monthly dataset of 152 rain gages with more than 50 years of observation. Possible trends in seasonal and annual rainfall values have been detected by means of the Mann–Kendall test and of a new graphical technique, Şen’s method, which allows the trend identification of the low, medium, and high values of a series. As a result, different behaviors emerged in the South Island, with a rainfall increase in the southwest regions and a decrease in northeast areas. Moreover, the comparison of the trend methodologies has revealed different trend results (increasing, decreasing, or trendless time series). In particular, this study shows that Şen’s method could be successfully used in the evaluation of peak and low values of data for the trend analysis of seasonal and annual rainfall values.

High impact weather events such as extreme temperatures or rainfall can cause significant disruption across the UK affecting sectors such as health, transport, agriculture and energy. In this study we draw on the latest set of UK climate projections, UKCP, to examine metrics relating to high-impact weather over the UK and how these change with different levels of future global warming from 1.5 °C to 4 °C above pre-industrial. The changes to these hazards show increases in the frequency of extremely hot days and nights, with a UK average increase in hot days of between 5 and 39 days per year between 1.5 °C and 4 °C of global warming. Projections indicate an increase in cooling degree days of 134–627% and an increase in growing degree days of 19–60% between 1.5 °C and 4 °C of global warming. Extremely hot nights, which are currently rare, are emerging as more common occurrences. The frequency of high daily temperatures and rainfall increase systematically, while the frequency of very cold conditions (based on days where temperatures fall below 0 °C) is shown to decrease by 10 to 49 days per year. A reduction in heating degree days, of 11–32% between 1.5 °C and 4 °C of warming, is projected. Levels of daily rainfall, which currently relate to increased risk of river flooding, are shown to increase across the country, with increases of days with high impact levels of rainfall occurring by 1 to 8 days per year between 1.5 °C and 4 °C of warming. Average drought severity is projected to increase for 3-, 6-, 12- and 36-month-long droughts. The largest changes in the severity of the 12-month drought are between −3 and +19% between 1.5 °C and 4 °C of warming and for 36-month drought between −2 and +54% between 1.5 °C and 4 °C of warming. The projected future changes in high impact weather from this study will enable the characterization of climate risks and ultimately be able to better inform adaptation planning in different sectors to support the increase in resilience of the UK to future climate variability and change.

Eastern Africa’s fast-growing population is vulnerable to changing rainfall and extremes. Using the first pan-African climate change simulations that explicitly model the rainfall-generating convection, we investigate both the climate change response of key mesoscale drivers of eastern African rainfall, such as sea and lake breezes, and the spatial heterogeneity of rainfall responses. The explicit model shows widespread increases at the end of the century in mean (∼40%) and extreme (∼50%) rain rates, whereas the sign of changes in rainfall frequency has large spatial heterogeneity (from −50% to over +90%). In comparison, an equivalent parameterized simulation has greater moisture convergence and total rainfall increase over the eastern Congo and less over eastern Africa. The parameterized model also does not capture 1) the large heterogeneity of changes in rain frequency; 2) the widespread and large increases in extreme rainfall, which result from increased rainfall per humidity change; and 3) the response of rainfall to the changing sea breeze, even though the sea-breeze change is captured. Consequently, previous rainfall projections are likely inadequate for informing many climate-sensitive decisions—for example, for infrastructure in coastal cities. We consider the physics revealed here and its implications to be relevant for many other vulnerable tropical regions, especially those with coastal convection.

As the frequency and intensity of heavy rainfall increase, the frequency of extreme rainfall-induced landslides also increases. Thus, the importance of accurate assessment of extreme rainfall-induced landslide hazard increases. Landslide hazard assessment requires estimations of two components: spatial probability and temporal probability. While various approaches have been successfully used to estimate spatial landslide susceptibility, fewer studies have addressed temporal probability and, consequently, a commonly accepted method does not exist. Prior approaches have estimated temporal probability using frequency analysis of past landslides or landslide triggering rainfall events. Hence, a large amount of information was required: sufficiently complete historical data on recurrent landslides and repetitive rainfall events. However, in many cases, it is difficult to obtain such complete historical data. Therefore, this study developed a new approach that can be applied to an area where incomplete data are available or where nonrepetitive landslide events have occurred. To evaluate the temporal probability of landslide occurrence, the developed approach adopted extreme value analysis using the Gumbel distribution. The exceedance probability of a rainfall threshold was evaluated, using the Gumbel model, with 72-h antecedent rainfall threshold. This probability was then considered to be the temporal probability of landslide occurrence. The temporal probability of landslides was then integrated with landslide susceptibility results from a multi-layer perceptron model. Consequently, the landslide hazards for different future time periods, from 1 to 200 years, were estimated.

Northern India has undergone intense urbanization since the middle of the 20th century. The impact of such drastic land-use change on the regional weather and climate remains to be assessed. In this work, we study the impact of the modification of land use – from vegetation to urban – on the Indian summer monsoon rainfall as well as on other meteorological variables. We use the regional Meso-scale Non-Hydrostatic (Meso-NH) model coupled with an urban module (the Town Energy Balance model) to perform monthlong sensitivity simulations centered around Kolkata, the most urbanized area in northeastern India. Paired simulations, one with and another without urban settings, have been performed to identify the impacts related to urbanization through both thermodynamic and kinetic effects. We find that the perturbation induced by urban land use enhances the mean rainfall over the model domain, principally by intensifying the convective activity through thermodynamic perturbation, leading to a 14.4 % increase in the monthly mean rainfall. The urban area also induces a 15.0 % rainfall increase during two modeled periods of heavy precipitation caused by low-pressure systems. In addition, the modeling results demonstrate that the urban area not only generally acts as a rainfall enhancer, particularly during nighttime, but also induces the generation of a specific storm in one modeled case that would not have formed in the absence of the urban area. The initiation of this storm over the city was primarily due to the urban terrain's disturbance of the near-surface wind flow, leading to a surge in dynamically produced turbulent kinetic energy (TKE). The thermal production of TKE over the nighttime urban boundary layer, on the other hand, serves as a contributing factor to the storm formation.

Water is the single most important element of life. Rainfall plays an important role in the spatial and temporal distribution of this precious natural resource, and it has a direct impact on agricultural production, daily life activities, and human health. One of the important elements that govern rainfall formation and distribution is atmospheric aerosol, which also affects the Earth's radiation balance and climate. Therefore, understanding how dust compositions and distributions affect the regional rainfall pattern is crucial, particularly in regions with high atmospheric dust loads such as the Middle East. Although aerosol and rainfall research has garnered increasing attention as both an independent and interdisciplinary topic in the last few decades, the details of various direct and indirect pathways by which dust affects rainfall are not yet fully understood. Here, we explored the effects of dust on rainfall formation and distribution as well as the physical mechanisms that govern these phenomena, using high-resolution WRF-Chem simulations (∼ 1.5 km × 1.5 km) configured with an advanced double-moment cloud microphysics scheme coupled with a sectional eight-bin aerosol scheme. Our model-simulated results were realistic, as evaluated from multiple perspectives including vertical profiles of aerosol concentrations, aerosol size distributions, vertical profiles of air temperature, diurnal wind cycles, and spatio-temporal rainfall patterns. Rainfall over the Red Sea coast is mainly caused by warm rain processes, which are typically confined within a height of ∼ 6 km over the Sarawat mountains and exhibit a strong diurnal cycle that peaks in the evening at approximately 18:00 local time under the influence of sea breezes. Numerical experiments indicated that dust could both suppress or enhance rainfall. The effect of dust on rainfall was calculated as total, indirect, and direct effects, based on 10-year August-average daily-accumulated rainfall over the study domain covering the eastern Red Sea coast. For extreme rainfall events (domain-average daily-accumulated rainfall of ≥ 1.33 mm), the net effect of dust on rainfall was positive or enhancement (6.05 %), with the indirect effect (4.54 %) and direct effect (1.51 %) both causing rainfall increase. At a 5 % significance level, the total and indirect effects were statistically significant whereas the direct effect was not. For normal rainfall events (domain-average daily-accumulated rainfall < 1.33 mm), the indirect effect enhanced rainfall (4.76 %) whereas the direct effect suppressed rainfall (−5.78 %), resulting in a negative net suppressing effect (−1.02 %), all of which were statistically significant. We investigated the possible physical mechanisms of the effects and found that the rainfall suppression by dust direct effects was mainly caused by the scattering of solar radiation by dust. The surface cooling induced by dust weakens the sea breeze circulation, which decreases the associated landward moisture transport, ultimately suppressing rainfall. For extreme rainfall events, dust causes net rainfall enhancement through indirect effects as the high dust concentration facilitates raindrops to grow when the water vapor is sufficiently available. Our results have broader scientific and environmental implications. Specifically, although dust is considered a problem from an air quality perspective, our results highlight the important role of dust on sea breeze circulation and associated rainfall over the Red Sea coastal regions. Our results also have implications for cloud seeding and water resource management.

As one of the major producers of extreme precipitation, mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) have received much attention. Recently, MCSs over several hotpots, including the Sahel and US Great Plains, have been found to intensify under global warming. However, relevant studies on the East Asian rainband, another MCS hotpot, are scarce. Here, by using a novel rain‐cell tracking algorithm on a high spatiotemporal resolution satellite precipitation product, we show that both the frequency and intensity of MCSs over the East Asian rainband have increased by 21.8% and 9.8% respectively over the past two decades (2000–2021). The more frequent and intense MCSs contribute nearly three quarters to the total precipitation increase. The changes in MCSs are caused by more frequent favorable large‐scale water vapor‐rich environments that are likely to increase under global warming. The increased frequency and intensity of MCSs have profound impacts on the hydroclimate of East Asia, including producing extreme events such as severe flooding. Plain Language Summary Mesoscale convective systems (MCSs), accounting for more than half of the total rainfall in the East Asian rainband, frequently generate high‐impact extreme weather events, such as flooding. In the summer of 2020, large regions of East Asia suffered extensive flooding and damage. Therefore, understanding the long‐term changes of MCSs is crucial to gain insights into how extreme weather may change in the context of global warming. However, compared to several other MCS hotpots, the investigation of long‐term changes of MCSs is scarce over East Asia. Here, based on a high spatiotemporal resolution satellite precipitation product and a novel MCS tracking method, we find that MCSs have become more frequent and intense in the East Asian rainband and accounted for three quarters of the total rainfall increase during 2000–2021. It is further found that increases in atmospheric total column water vapor, which is mainly due to increased temperature caused by anthropogenic forcing, leads to more frequent large‐scale water vapor‐rich environments that are responsible for the intensification of MCSs. As water vapor increases with global warming, it is very likely that MCSs will continue to intensify in this region into the future. Key Points Mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) have become more frequent and intense in the East Asian rainband over the past two decades The significant increase of MCS precipitation accounted for three quarters of the total rainfall increase during 2000–2021 The increase of atmospheric total column water vapor, mainly driven by anthropogenic forcing, leads to more favorable environments for MCSs