Extreme precipitation has been increasing throughout the mainland United States due to climate change, and that is not going to stop any time soon. We have a general idea that it should continue to increase by about seven percent for each degree Celsius the climate warms.

Such an increase should lead to much greater danger of flash floods throughout the US. However, it’s difficult to use that to make specific predictions, because the figure—seven percent—is not accurate across the board. It changes with the particular region, moisture level, elevation, and other factors. These variables make it difficult to use current precipitation models, or even past observations, to extrapolate into the future and make exact, local predictions. And, vice versa, it’s also difficult to extract any meaningful information about the global climate from such local data.

In a new study, researchers address this problem by constructing a novel, high-resolution computer simulation of precipitation throughout the contiguous United States and observing how precipitation changes in local areas. The study, published in Nature Climate Change, also compares the modeled results to observations of real precipitation throughout the country.