Journal article
Assessing future changes in daily precipitation extremes across the contiguous United States with the extended Generalized Pareto distribution
Journal of hydrology (Amsterdam), Vol.659, 133212
10/2025
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2025.133212
Abstract
•We model extremes with the Extended Pareto Distribution that does not require thresholds.•The use of the entire record leads to more robust estimates of changes in extremes.•Large intensification of extremes by the end of the century, for higher emission scenarios.•Over 50 % increase in 100-year extremes in southern, northeastern and western US.
There have been multiple record-breaking precipitation events in the past and extremes are projected to intensify in the future. The reported change in extremes is contingent upon the methodology and the datasets used for the analysis. Widely used extreme value statistics disregard important information in the data by selectively sampling extremes, an issue addressed by the extended Generalized Pareto distribution (ExtGPD), an extension of the Generalized Pareto distribution that models the entire data range. We apply the ExtGPD to assess the projected changes in daily precipitation extremes across the contiguous United States (CONUS) using 22 global climate models (GCMs), part of the 6th Climate Model Intercomparison Project Phase (CMIP6) for four different emission pathways. We first assess the performance of the GCMs in reproducing observational records and select a subset of well-performing models (used a median of ten GCMs at most grids); we then determine the projected changes in daily precipitation magnitude in the middle (2031–2064) and end (2067–2100) 21st century relative to the 1981–2014 period. We observe daily precipitation extremes to intensify across CONUS. A projected increase of over 50 % in the magnitude of 100-year daily precipitation extremes relative to the historical climate is expected in the southern, northeastern, and western United States by the end of the century under high emission scenarios. In general, the results are consistent across the models, with low inter-model variability and over ten GCMs projecting a significant intensification of the extremes. The findings corroborate that emission reductions significantly mitigate the intensification of daily precipitation by the end-century, highlighting the need for rapid climate action.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Assessing future changes in daily precipitation extremes across the contiguous United States with the extended Generalized Pareto distribution
- Creators
- J.S. Nanditha - Princeton UniversityGabriele Villarini - Princeton UniversityPhilippe Naveau - Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Journal of hydrology (Amsterdam), Vol.659, 133212
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2025.133212
- ISSN
- 0022-1694
- eISSN
- 1879-2707
- Publisher
- Elsevier B.V
- Grant note
- Princeton UniversityEuropean H2020 XAIDA: 101003469 French national programs: 80 PRIME CNRS-INSUAgence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR): ANR-20-CE40-0025-01 ANR EXSTAPEPR TRACCS programme: ANR-22-EXTR-0005 Mines Paris/INRAE chair Geolearning
We acknowledge the availability of CPC Unified Gauge-Based Analysis of Daily Precipitation over CONUS data provided by the NOAA PSL, Boulder, Colorado, USA, from their website at https://psl.noaa.gov. We acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme, which, through its Working Group on Coupled Modelling, coordinated and promoted CMIP6. We thank the climate modeling groups for producing and making available their model output, the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) for archiving the data and providing access, and the multiple funding agencies who support CMIP6 and ESGF. This work was in part funded by Princeton University. Part of Philippe Naveau's research work was supported by European H2020 XAIDA (Grant agreement ID: 101003469) and the French national programs: 80 PRIME CNRS-INSU, Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) under reference ANR-20-CE40-0025-01 (T-REX) , the ANR EXSTA, and the PEPR TRACCS programme under Grant ANR-22-EXTR-0005, and the Mines Paris/INRAE chair Geolearning. The comments by three anonymous reviewers, editor and the associate editor are gratefully acknowledged.
- Language
- English
- Electronic publication date
- 04/2025
- Date published
- 10/2025
- Academic Unit
- Civil and Environmental Engineering; IIHR--Hydroscience and Engineering
- Record Identifier
- 9984808277902771
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