Extreme rainfall events in southern Sweden: where does the moisture come from?

Malin Gustafsson; David Rayner; Deliang Chen

doi:10.1111/j.1600-0870.2010.00456.x

Extreme rainfall events in southern Sweden: where does the moisture come from?

Tellus

Volume 62 (2010): Issue 5

By: Malin Gustafsson, David Rayner and Deliang Chen

Open Access

|Jan 2010

Abstract

The atmospheric transport of moisture leading to extreme summer precipitation events in southern Sweden was investigated using a Lagrangian trajectory model. Surprisingly, we found that the trajectories crossed continental Europe and the Baltic Sea before arriving over Sweden; they did not arrive directly from the North Sea. Such transport pathways were not seen for a control sample of non-extreme rainfall events. We then used a new source region identification technique to investigate the hypothesis that Europe and the Baltic are important sources of the moisture that is rained out in the extreme events. Although the results varied between events, we found that this is indeed the case. Our results establish the atmospheric transport patterns that are apparently a pre-requisite for extreme rainfall events to occur in southern Sweden, and further suggest regional moisture availability may also play a key role.

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0870.2010.00456.x | Journal eISSN: 3035-9554

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Language: English

Page range: 605 - 616

Submitted on: Sep 23, 2009

Accepted on: Mar 11, 2010

Published on: Jan 1, 2010

Published by: Stockholm University Press

In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

© 2010 Malin Gustafsson, David Rayner, Deliang Chen, published by Stockholm University Press
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Volume 62 (2010): Issue 5