Relationship Between Circulation Types and Extreme Precipitation Over Scandinavia Is Stable Under Climate Change

Abstract

The atmospheric large-scale environment determines the occurrence of local extreme precipitation, and it is unclear how climate change affects this relationship. Here we investigate the present-day relationship between large-scale circulation types (CTs) and daily precipitation extremes over Scandinavia and its future change. A 50-member EC-Earth3 large ensemble is used to assess future changes against internal variability. We show that CTs are related to extreme precipitation over the entire domain. The intensity of extreme daily precipitation increases in all seasons in the future climate, generally following the strength of warming in the six different future scenarios considered. However, no significant future change is found in the relationship between extreme precipitation and the CTs in any season or scenario. The results have important implications for applications that rely on the stability of this relationship, such as statistical and event-based dynamical downscaling of future weather and climate predictions and long-term climate projections.