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 0(10-day) periodic oscillation state with a 100 mm day-1)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.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | eaed1634 |
| Journal | Science advances |
| Volume | 12 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 7 Aug 2026 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:Copyright © 2026 the Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. no claim to original U.S. Government Works. distributed under a creative commons Attribution noncommercial license 4.0 (cc BY-nc).
UN SDGs
This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
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SDG 13 Climate Action
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