Impact of climate change on precipitation

Current climate models suggest that global warming will result in more frequent extreme hydrological events (floods and droughts). These results, however, must be tempered with the fact that current climate models do not realistically represent many of the processes important to the formation of clouds and precipitation at various time and space scales. For instance, the diurnal cycle of precipitation is poorly represented in most climate models. The proper representation of precipitation is a major challenge to global climate models, which typically only resolve processes at 200- to 400-km scales, and is a focus of current scientific research. This chapter addresses the current understanding of the likely climate impact on precipitation, as well as some of the key challenges facing climate modelers with regard to improving future projections of precipitation.