"Precipitation variability" refers to the changes or fluctuations in the amount of rain, snow, or other forms of water falling from the atmosphere over a specific period of time or in a particular region. It describes how the amount and intensity of precipitation can vary from year to year or place to place.
Full definition
Vera C. S., P. L. M. Gonzalez, B. Liebmann and G. N. Kiladis (November 2018): Seasonal cycle
of precipitation variability in South America on intraseasonal timescales.
In summary, an intensification of the Asian summer monsoon and an enhancement of summer
monsoon precipitation variability with increased greenhouse gases that was reported in the SAR has been corroborated by new studies.
Holden, Z. A., Morgan, P., Crimmins, M. A., Steinhorst, R. K. & Smith, A. M. S. Fire season
precipitation variability influences fire extent and severity in a large southwestern wilderness area, United States.
«The climate models simulate
pre-industrial precipitation variability reasonably well but simulate much stronger wet and dry anomalies during the twentieth century than those found in the reconstruction.
«Through a comprehensive statistical analysis of precipitation observations (1951 — 2011), we show that statistically significant decreases in peak - season precipitation over the core monsoon region have cooccurred with statistically significant increases in daily -
scale precipitation variability,» the researchers said.
If past patterns of
precipitation variability remain stable in the near term, then it is probable that precipitation and flows in the Salt - Verde watersheds will shift into wetter conditions within the timeframe examined in this study [66].
Some global circulation models also project that mean winter precipitation in the Southwest will decline by up to 10 % [52], but it may take many years to detect effects on stream flows because of precipitation variability [55].
Mean modeled winter precipitation from CESM LME ensemble members 2 to 5 show unsystematic differences in Southwest winter
precipitation variability between each other and with our NADA PDSI time series (Table 1, S1 Fig).
Irrespective of these shortcomings, our results have demonstrated that even a zero - dimensional 1st order linear Markov model driven by
observed precipitation variability could generate skillful forecasts by initializing the observed soil water.
The key result from our analysis is that
although precipitation variability is statistically not predictable beyond 1 — 2 years in our model, soil moisture variations at deeper soil levels and total water storage (including aquifers) in the northern US and southern US / Mexico regions can be predicted up to a decade ahead.
This finding is consistent with the idea that soils provide a natural low - pass filter (integrator)
for precipitation variability, yielding the low frequency signals in total water storage.
Koster et al. (2004, 2006) and Guo et al. (2006) report on a new model intercomparison activity, the Global Land Atmosphere Coupling Experiment (GLACE), which compares among climate models differences in
precipitation variability caused by interaction with soil moisture.
Understanding and modeling the fundamental processes that govern the
large precipitation variability and extremes in the western U.S. is a critical test for the ability of climate models to predict the regional water cycle, including floods and droughts.
The beneficial impacts of increased annual runoff in other areas will be tempered by the negative effects of
increased precipitation variability and seasonal runoff shifts on water supply, water quality, and flood risks (high confidence)[3.4, 3.5].
Meehl and Arblaster (2003) relate the increased
monsoon precipitation variability to increased variability in evaporation and precipitation in the Pacific due to increased SSTs.
Satellite measures of vegetation greenness, together with animal stocking data and key climatic factors, reveal
interannual precipitation variability to be a significant constraint on global pasture productivity.
To further test the relationship between total water storage and low
frequency precipitation variability, we apply a 10 - year running mean filter to the simulated precipitation over land and perform an EOF analysis of the outcome.
«Interestingly, the effect
of precipitation variability was amplified over the six years the experiment lasted and we still don't know its end point,» said Laureano Gherardi, a School of Life Sciences postdoctoral research associate and co-author of the paper.
For birds and amphibians, we considered exposure to five components of climate change, namely changes in mean temperature, temperature variability, mean precipitation,
precipitation variability and sea level rise.
The impacts of climate change on freshwater systems and their management are mainly due to the observed and projected increases in temperature, sea level and
precipitation variability (very high confidence).
Efforts to offset declining surface water availability due to increasing
precipitation variability will be hampered by the fact that groundwater recharge will decrease considerably in some already water - stressed regions (high confidence)[3.2, 3.4.2], where vulnerability is often exacerbated by the rapid increase in population and water demand (very high confidence)[3.5.1].
One reason is that
precipitation variability is very likely to increase.
• Risk of food insecurity and the breakdown of food systems linked to warming, drought, flooding, and
precipitation variability and extremes, particularly for poorer populations in urban and rural settings.
However this is a change that is only now beginning to emerge and currently is exerting less influence on
precipitation variability than ocean variability or internal variability.»