TY  - JOUR
A1  - Traxl, Dominik
A1  - Boers, Niklas
A1  - Rheinwalt, Aljoscha
A1  - Goswami, Bedartha
A1  - Kurths, Jürgen
T1  - The size distribution of spatiotemporal extreme rainfall clusters around the globe
JF  - Geophysical research letters
N2  - The scaling behavior of rainfall has been extensively studied both in terms of event magnitudes and in terms of spatial extents of the events. Different heavy-tailed distributions have been proposed as candidates for both instances, but statistically rigorous treatments are rare. Here we combine the domains of event magnitudes and event area sizes by a spatiotemporal integration of 3-hourly rain rates corresponding to extreme events derived from the quasi-global high-resolution rainfall product Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission 3B42. A maximum likelihood evaluation reveals that the distribution of spatiotemporally integrated extreme rainfall cluster sizes over the oceans is best described by a truncated power law, calling into question previous statements about scale-free distributions. The observed subpower law behavior of the distribution's tail is evaluated with a simple generative model, which indicates that the exponential truncation of an otherwise scale-free spatiotemporal cluster size distribution over the oceans could be explained by the existence of land masses on the globe.
Y1  - 2016
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL070692
SN  - 0094-8276
SN  - 1944-8007
VL  - 43
SP  - 9939
EP  - 9947
PB  - American Geophysical Union
CY  - Washington
ER  -