Cyclone Gabrielle as a Design Storm for Northeastern Aotearoa New Zealand Under Anthropogenic Warming

Abstract

Cyclone Gabrielle passed along the northern coast of Aotearoa New Zealand in February 2023, producing historic rainfall accumulations and impacts. Gabrielle was an ex-tropical cyclone that stalled and re-energised off the north coast, resembling descriptions of worst case scenarios for the northeast of the country. Here we report on a comparison of the actual forecast of the storm against forecasts under conditions representative of a climate without anthropogenic interference and of a climate +2.0°C warmer than pre-industrial (about 1.0°C cooler and warmer than present respectively). We find that regional total rainfall accumulations from a Gabrielle-like storm are about 10% higher because of the historical anthropogenic warming, and will increase by a larger amount under similar future warming. These differences are driven by a 20% (relative to a non-anthropogenic world) to 30% (relative to a +2.0°C world) rise in peak rainfall rates, which in turn is mainly driven by a more temporally concentrated column-integrated moisture flux. The forecast model generates the larger increase for the +2.0°C world through greater precipitation efficiency, reflecting the importance of unresolved precipitation processes in the climate change response of rainfall extremes.