caa a22 4500 605472378 CHVBK 20210128100337.0 cr unu---uuuuu 210128e20151201xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s00382-015-2517-1 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s00382-015-2517-1 Probabilistic tail dependence of intense precipitation on spatiotemporal scale in observations, reanalyses, and GCMs [Elektronische Daten] [Nicholas Cavanaugh, Alexander Gershunov] Daily precipitation variability as observed from weather stations is heavy tailed at most locations around the world. It is thought that diversity in precipitation-causing weather events is fundamental in producing heavy-tailed distributions, and it arises from theory that at least one of the precipitation types contributing to a heavy-tailed climatological record must also be heavy-tailed. Precipitation is a multi-scale phenomenon with a rich spatial structure and short decorrelation length and timescales; the spatiotemporal scale at which precipitation is observed is thus an important factor when considering its statistics and extremes. In this study, we examine the spatiotemporal scaling behavior of intense precipitation from point-scale to large grid cells and from 1day to 4weeks over the entire globe. We go on to validate the current generation of historically-forced climate models and reanalyses against observational data at consistent spatial scales. Our results demonstrate that the prevalence and magnitude of heavy tails in observations decrease when moving to lower spatiotemporal resolutions, as is consistent with stochastic theory. Reanalyses and climate models generally reproduce large, synoptic scale distribution classifications, but struggle to reproduce the statistics in regions that are strongly affected by mesoscale phenomena. We discuss these results in relation to physically consistent atmospheric regimes. We conclude with a global view of precipitation distribution type at daily resolution as calculated from the best-performing reanalysis, the Climate Forecast System Reanalysis. Springer-Verlag (outside the USA), 2015 Daily intense precipitation nationallicence Extremes nationallicence Heavy tails nationallicence Extreme value theory nationallicence Scale dependence nationallicence Cavanaugh Nicholas Earth Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Mail Stop 74R316C, 94720, Berkeley, CA, USA aut Gershunov Alexander Climate Atmospheric Science and Physical Oceanography Division, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA, USA aut Climate Dynamics Springer Berlin Heidelberg 45/11-12(2015-12-01), 2965-2975 0930-7575 45:11-12<2965 2015 45 382 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-015-2517-1 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-015-2517-1 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Cavanaugh Nicholas Earth Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Mail Stop 74R316C, 94720, Berkeley, CA, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Gershunov Alexander Climate Atmospheric Science and Physical Oceanography Division, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Climate Dynamics Springer Berlin Heidelberg 45/11-12(2015-12-01), 2965-2975 0930-7575 45:11-12<2965 2015 45 382