https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/34/6/JCLI-D-20-0197.1.xml
5. Summary and discussion
This study investigates effects of global warming on extreme snowstorms along the NEUS coast by conducting and comparing dynamical-downscaling WRF simulations driven with and without the mean climate change signal extracted from HiRAM historical and future simulations. The 93 observed snowstorms in 1980–2015 documented in G. Chen et al. (2019) were adopted as surrogates for studying the potential effects. Results show that the number of events with moderate and heavy daily snowfall (SWE greater than 10 mm day−1) at Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. is decreased from 60, 54, 43, and 30 to 32, 29, 30, and 20, respectively (Fig. 7). In addition, although the rainfall increases in all four cities, total precipitation increases in the south (especially along the coast), where the rainfall is increased due to the warming-caused increase of water vapor content and upward vertical motion, but decreases in the north (especially along the coast), where the rainfall increase is overwhelmed by the snow decrease (Figs. 5–7). As a result, the precipitation distribution exhibits a southwestward shift. Another notable effect is that the frequency of mixed rain and snow and freezing precipitation events is increased in the north of NEUS (Figs. 8 and 9), attributed to the northward retreat of the 0°C zone and the expansion of the zone with temperature near 0°C.