Linking Total Precipitable Water to Precipitation Extremes Globally

Abstract

The relationship between extreme precipitation (EP) and precipitable water (W) is useful to assess design extremes and speculate on their expected changes with rising global temperatures. This study investigates the relationship between daily and longer-duration EP and corresponding W at a global scale by analyzing remote-sensed and reanalysis data sets from 2003 to 2019. An assessment of the consistency in the temporal trend across various W data sets reveals a consistent statistically significant upward trend during the period. This upward trend, while predominant worldwide, is especially significant over tropical land regions. W is found to generally be positively correlated with surface ..