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Portland State University

Theses/Dissertations

2021

Climatology

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Regional Characteristics And Variability Of Extreme Precipitation And Atmospheric Rivers In Past, Present, And Future Climates Over The Contiguous United States, Emily Anne Slinskey Jul 2021

Regional Characteristics And Variability Of Extreme Precipitation And Atmospheric Rivers In Past, Present, And Future Climates Over The Contiguous United States, Emily Anne Slinskey

Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation examines the regional and seasonal variability of extreme precipitation and atmospheric rivers (ARs) across the contiguous United States (CONUS) in past, present, and future climates. An extreme precipitation categorization scheme, designed to monitor and track the multi-scale variability of extreme precipitation, is applied to a range of precipitation measurement products as an assessment of observational uncertainty. To investigate the importance of ARs across the CONUS, an objective AR identification algorithm is applied to global reanalysis to identify and characterize AR characteristics regionally over the observational record. Projected change in AR day frequency, geometry, intensity, and associated precipitation is …


Climate Model Evaluation Of Atmospheric Rivers Over The Contiguous United States, Ilan González-Hirshfeld Jul 2021

Climate Model Evaluation Of Atmospheric Rivers Over The Contiguous United States, Ilan González-Hirshfeld

Dissertations and Theses

Atmospheric rivers (ARs)--long corridors of intense atmospheric water vapor transport--significantly influence the hydrologic cycle and regional hydrometeorological extremes across the contiguous United States (CONUS). Ongoing and future climate change may alter AR characteristics and impacts, making confident climate model projections of future change, especially at regional scales, of critical importance. In order to better constrain uncertainty in such projections of future change, we perform a comprehensive climate model evaluation of AR climatology over the CONUS. Using an established AR detection algorithm, we evaluate the representation of ARs in historical simulations (1984-2013) from a suite of models participating in the sixth …