Regional climate modeling of intensive storms of Central Alberta under possible climate change impact

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As the Earth warms, higher temperatures likely mean that more precipitation will fall over shorter time intervals, thus increasing the frequency and severity of extreme storm events. Conversely, global warming could modify existing Intensity-Duration-Frequency (IDF) curves of Canadian cities, including those of Edmonton. This is a continuation of Phase I and II studies funded by the City of Edmonton and NSERC, where we have demonstrated that return periods of future short-duration storms based on regional IDF curves of Edmonton developed from precipitation simulated by a regional climate model (RCM) subject to climate change impact, are projected to decrease. This means that the municipal infrastructure of Edmonton designed with old IDF curves could suffer from under design problems and so public safety could be compromised. However, these results are based on the simulations of A RCM without considering land-atmospheric feedback. In Phase III of this project, the next version of RCM called Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) will be coupled to one or more land surface models (LSM) to account for the land-atmosphere feedback. Further, the newer RCM will be subjected to the latest climate change scenarios of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the results will be used to update the regional IDF curves for Edmonton. The results will benefit the City of Edmonton in the management and development of its infrastructure.