The sensitivity of precipitation to temperature over islands and oceans

Understanding how precipitation responds to atmospheric warming at global and regional scales is crucial for predicting and adapting to the impacts of climate change. However, calculating the observed precipitation sensitivity to temperature (dP/dT) over the 20th century is difficult due to the lack of long observational records in much of the world; in particular, satellite observations of ocean precipitation are only available after 1979. Available satellite observations suggest a large sensitivity of precipitation to warming temperatures, particularly over wet tropical ocean regions, and climate models capture the sign but underestimate the magnitude of these changes. By analyzing longer (1930-2005), islands-based observations, we estimate precipitation sensitivity in ocean regions using an independent, in-situ dataset. A key finding is that dP/dT for island observations of precipitation can exceed the Clausius …