Principal Investigator Paul O'Gorman
Given the large increase in atmospheric water vapor with increasing temperature, it is natural to ask how precipitation changes. Climate models suggest that both global mean precipitation and the intensity of precipitation extremes will increase in a warmer climate. Local decreases in precipitation are also expected in already dry parts of the world. Quantifying the expected changes in precipitation and in intense precipitation events is a major challenge for climate modeling. The O’Gorman Group is endeavoring to understand the physical basis for changes in precipitation and its extremes using extensive simulations of idealized atmospheres, together with scaling analyses of the underlying equations.