Projected intensification of sub-daily and daily rainfall extremes in convection-permitting climate model simulations over North America: implications for future intensity–duration–frequency curves

Cannon, Alex J.; Innocenti, Silvia

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-19-421-2019

Articles | Volume 19, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-19-421-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Hydroclimatic extremes and impacts at catchment to regional...

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-19-421-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 2

Research article

|

01 Mar 2019

Research article |

| 01 Mar 2019

Projected intensification of sub-daily and daily rainfall extremes in convection-permitting climate model simulations over North America: implications for future intensity–duration–frequency curves

Alex J. Cannon and Silvia Innocenti

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Final revised paper (published on 01 Mar 2019)
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Preprint (discussion started on 16 Oct 2018)
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Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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RC1: 'Review comments for nhess-2018-290', Anonymous Referee #1, 13 Nov 2018
- AC1: 'Reply to Reviewer #1', Alex Cannon, 20 Nov 2018
RC2: 'My review to nhess-2018-290', Anonymous Referee #2, 23 Nov 2018
- AC2: 'Reply to Reviewer #2', Alex Cannon, 06 Dec 2018
RC3: 'Review comments for nhess-2018-290', Anonymous Referee #3, 26 Dec 2018
- AC3: 'Reply to Reviewer #3', Alex Cannon, 07 Jan 2019

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (11 Jan 2019) by Ricardo Trigo

AR by Alex Cannon on behalf of the Authors (15 Jan 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (16 Jan 2019) by Ricardo Trigo

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (23 Jan 2019)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

General comments:

Thank you for making the changes. Here are some newer details that I have spotted. The minor comment is very minor, but the "major" comment may require some minor checking.

Major Comment:

Pg 12, lines 19-22: You could probably do some quick areal reduction factor (ARF) calculations to show how good is to assume high resolution gridded data can be compared with point data without correction. I do not know the ARF guidelines for US or Canada, but UK ARF guidelines (Kjeldsen 2007; see Chapter 4, free PDF is available at the referenced website) suggest with WRF, CMORPH and NSWEP grid at 39N (Washington DC) to have ARF ~ 0.9, 0.85, 0.8 respectively for 1hr precipitation. For 24h precipitation, ARF > 0.95. Of course, ARF themselves are approximations and region specific, but it is probably a good idea to comment on that how may affect your results. For example for your Fig 5, failure to account for areal averaging may push your MLAR curves downward; WRF's MLAR for 1h is negative about -0.08 (?); assuming UK ARF, log10(0.9) ~ -0.05, so your WRF results may actually look better than the plot indicates. Overall, your comment (Pg. 14, lines 23-24) that WRF is probably better than CMORPH in the representation of the current-climate rainfall extremes remains true (in fact WRF may be better than you think).

Minor Comment:

Equation 6: Define the meaning of U (uniform distribution) and N (normal distribution) and their bracketed parameters; some readers may not be familiar with that notation style.

Kjeldsen, T.R.. (2007). The revitalised FSR/FEH rainfall-runoff method. Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. Wallingford. Retrieved from https://www.ceh.ac.uk/services/flood-estimation-handbook

Referee Report: PDF

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RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (01 Feb 2019)

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (11 Feb 2019) by Ricardo Trigo

AR by Alex Cannon on behalf of the Authors (18 Feb 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (19 Feb 2019) by Ricardo Trigo

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Short summary

Rainfall intensity–duration–frequency (IDF) curves are used as the basis for water resource infrastructure design. Given intensification of the hydrological cycle with global warming, quantitative information on the future extreme rainfall hazard is needed by practitioners. Projected changes in annual maximum rainfall in high-resolution regional climate model simulations result in IDF curves that shift upward and steepen, with greater intensification at short durations and long return periods.