While climate model global mean precipitation match observations reasonably well in historical runs, precipitation frequency and intensity is generally poorly represented at local scales; however, synoptic-scale features are more realistically simulated by climate models, and AR events can be identified by extremely high values of integrated water vapor flux at points near the West Coast. There have been many recent studies indicating changes in synoptic-scale features under climate change that could have meaningful impacts on the frequency and intensity of ARs. In this study, a suite of CMIP5 models are used to analyze predicted changes in frequency and intensity of AR events impacting the West Coast from the contemporary period (1970-1999) to the end of this century (2070-2099). Generally, integrated water vapor is predicted to increase in these models (both the mean and extremes) while low-level wind decreases and upper-level wind increases. This study aims to determine the influence of these changes on precipitation intensity in AR events in future climate simulations.
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