Light rain events change over North America, Europe, and Asia for 1973-2009

Analysis of daily precipitation data reveals diverse long-term trends of light rain events in North America (NA), Europe (EU), and Asia (AS), but overall a decreasing trend is found from 1973-2009, especially over East Asia, where a remarkable shift from light to heavy rain events has been observed. Although it has been argued that global warming may lead to a shift from light to heavy rain, regionally little correspondence is found between light rain trends and temperature/precipitable water (PW) trends. This argues for the need to include other factors such as atmospheric circulation and aerosol changes that affect regional rain rates and cloud processes. Copyright (C) 2010 Royal Meteorological Society