Centennial annual rainfall pattern changes show an increasing trend with higher variation over Northern Australia
- Publisher:
- American Meteorological Society
- Publication Type:
- Journal Article
- Citation:
- Journal of Hydrometeorology, 2022, 23, (5), pp. 1333-1349
- Issue Date:
- 2022-01-01
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| ContentServer.pdf | 3.27 MB |
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Global warming and anthropogenic activities have imposed noticeable impacts on rainfall pattern changes at both spatial and temporal scales in recent decades. Systematic diagnosis of rainfall pattern changes is urgently needed at spatiotemporal scales for a deeper understanding of how climate change produces variations in rainfall patterns. The objective of this study was to identify rainfall pattern changes systematically under climate change at a sub-continental scale along a rainfall gradient ranging from 1800 mm/yr to 200 mm/yr by analysing centennial rainfall data covering 230 sites from 1910 to 2017 in the Northern Territory of Australia. Rainfall pattern changes were characterized by considering aspects of trends and periodicity of annual rainfall, abrupt changes, rainfall distribution, and extreme rainfall events. Our results illustrated that rainfall patterns in Northern Australia have changed significantly compared with the early period of the 20th century. Specifically, (1) A significant increasing trend in annual precipitation associated with greater variation in recent decades was observed over the entire study area; (2) Temporal variations represented a mean rainfall periodicity of 27 years over wet to dry regions; (3) An abrupt change of annual rainfall amount occurred consistently in both humid and arid regions during the 1966-1975 period; (4) Partitioned long-term time series of rainfall demonstrated a wetter rainfall distribution trend across coastal to inland areas that was associated with more frequent extreme rainfall events in recent decades. The findings of this study could facilitate further studies on the mechanisms of climate change that influence rainfall pattern changes.
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