Periodic extreme rainfall in a warmer climate due to stronger convectively coupled waves.

Authors

Heng Quan, Yi Zhang, Guy Dagan, Stephan Fueglistaler

Published in

Science advances. Volume 12. Issue 32. Pages eaed1634. Aug 07, 2026. Epub Aug 07, 2026.

Abstract

Tropical regions may experience periodic extreme precipitation and suffer from associated periodic deluges in a warmer climate. Recent studies conducted small-domain (around 100 kilometers by 100 kilometers) atmospheric model simulations and found that precipitation transitions from a steady state to a periodic oscillation state in a hothouse climate when the sea surface temperature reaches 320 to 325 kelvin. Here, we conduct global-scale atmospheric model simulations with varying complexity. We find that tropical precipitation in convective regions already transitions to a [Formula: see text](10-day) periodic oscillation state with a [Formula: see text] amplitude at 305 to 310 kelvin, about 15 kelvin lower than previously reported and within reach in a century under a high-carbon emission scenario. Using a low-order analytical model, we attribute the onset of the periodic extreme precipitation to the intensification of convectively coupled waves that were not considered in the previous small-domain simulations. Our mechanism highlights the importance of the interaction between convection and atmospheric wave dynamics for climate change.

PMID:
42566527
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 08 Aug 2026.

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