Humid heatwaves, characterized by high temperature and humidity combinations, challenge tropical societies. Extreme wet-bulb temperatures (TW) over tropical land are coupled to the warmest sea surface temperatures (SST) by atmospheric convection and …
Mechanical forcing by orography affects precipitating convection across many tropical regions, but controls on the intensity and horizontal extent of the orographic precipitation peak and rain shadow remain poorly understood. A recent theory explains …
Atmospheric rivers (ARs) are extreme weather events that can alleviate drought or cause billions of dollars in flood damage. By transporting significant amounts of latent energy towards the poles, they are crucial to maintaining the climate system’s …
Historical trends in monsoon low pressure systems (LPS), the dominant rain-bearing weather system of South Asia, have been difficult to assess due to changes in the observing network. Future projections have also remained uncertain because prior …
Geologic evidence and palaeoclimate simulations have indicated the existence of an extensive, interconnected megamonsoon system over the Pangaea supercontinent. However, the ways in which subsequent continental break-up about 180 million years ago …
Most extreme precipitation in the densely populated region of central India is produced by atmospheric vortices called monsoon lows and monsoon depressions. Here we use satellite and gauge-based precipitation estimates with atmospheric reanalyses to …
The science of mountainous hydrology spans the atmosphere through the bedrock and inherently crosses physical and disciplinary boundaries: land-atmosphere interactions in complex terrain enhance clouds and precipitation, while watersheds retain and …
The distribution of land and ocean on Earth’s surface shapes the global atmospheric circulation and climate by modulating fluxes of water and energy between the surface and the atmosphere. Here we rearranged land in an idealized climate model to …
Reduced terrestrial evaporation directly warms the surface by reducing latent cooling, but also indirectly modifies surface climate by altering atmospheric processes. We use a global climate model to explore two end cases of terrestrial evaporation, …