Hydrological Constraints on Temperature Sensitivities of Precipitation Frequency and Intensity
Abstract
To improve understanding of how precipitation frequency and intensity change with warming, we combine the coupled land--atmosphere water balance with a stochastic hydrological model that retains explicit dependence on precipitation frequency and event depth. We find a linear relationship between co-variations of rainfall frequency and intensity, where the slope is a hydrological sensitivity determined by the dryness and storage indices and the intercept is a forcing term associated with changes in moisture convergence, potential evapotranspiration, and effective water-storage capacity. While a given relative change in either rainfall frequency or intensity produces an identical relative change in the mean rate, rainfall intensity additionally influences the runoff coefficient by altering terrestrial water storage relative to rainfall depth. This means frequency and intensity have different impacts on the water cycle, allowing the frequency--intensity slope to depart from -1. Analysis of long-term MOPEX records shows that the forcing term is dominated by moisture convergence and that the frequency--intensity relation becomes steeper from wet to dry regimes, consistent with the slope predicted by the theory. The framework provides a physical interpretation of the observed negative covariation between precipitation frequency and intensity and clarifies the roles of hydrological partitioning and atmospheric moisture supply in their responses to warming.
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BibTeX
@misc{yin2026hydrological,
title = {{Hydrological Constraints on Temperature Sensitivities of Precipitation Frequency and Intensity}},
author = {Jun Yin and Amilcare Porporato},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.25533},
eprint = {2609.25533},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.25533},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Hydrological Constraints on Temperature Sensitivities of Precipitation Frequency and Intensity
AU - Jun Yin
AU - Amilcare Porporato
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/22
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.25533
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.25533
AB - To improve understanding of how precipitation frequency and intensity change with warming, we combine the coupled land--atmosphere water balance with a stochastic hydrological model that retains explicit dependence on precipitation frequency and event depth. We find a linear relationship between co-variations of rainfall frequency and intensity, where the slope is a hydrological sensitivity determined by the dryness and storage indices and the intercept is a forcing term associated with changes in moisture convergence, potential evapotranspiration, and effective water-storage capacity. While a given relative change in either rainfall frequency or intensity produces an identical relative change in the mean rate, rainfall intensity additionally influences the runoff coefficient by altering terrestrial water storage relative to rainfall depth. This means frequency and intensity have different impacts on the water cycle, allowing the frequency--intensity slope to depart from -1. Analysis of long-term MOPEX records shows that the forcing term is dominated by moisture convergence and that the frequency--intensity relation becomes steeper from wet to dry regimes, consistent with the slope predicted by the theory. The framework provides a physical interpretation of the observed negative covariation between precipitation frequency and intensity and clarifies the roles of hydrological partitioning and atmospheric moisture supply in their responses to warming.
ER -