The study aims to detect the variation of precipitation extreme events in the DPRK during 1961–2020, as well as to investigate its possible causes.
The main conclusions were drawn as follows.
1) PRECPTOT had experienced a clear decreasing trend from 1968 to 2020 with a rate of − 37.7 mm/decade; reversely, SDII had a clear upward trend (0.19 mm/decade), and extreme or very heavy rainfall events of 100 mm/day also had a significant increase.
2) The percentile‐defined intense rainfall also showed a discernible change, with some trends being significant. The upward trends were 8.9 mm/decade for R95p and 6.3 mm/decade for R99p, respectively. The decadal mean contribution rates of R95p (R99p) to the annual total rainfall had experienced a remarkable increase, with the R95p (R99p) rainfall contribution increasing from 26.7% (8.8%) in 1960s to 31.5% (12.7%) in the 2010s.
3) The regional averaged CWD showed a decreasing trend of about − 0.2 days/decade, but CDD had experienced a clear upward trend with a rate of about 1.0 days/decade. The linear trends of CWD were not statistically significant at more than half the total stations, but CDD in most stations of the mid inland zone and the west coastal zone presented a remarkable downward trend.
4) The decrease of the annual PRCPTOT is mainly related to the rainfall reduction during the period from July to September.
Our findings have contributed to clarifying the long‐term change of extreme precipitation indices in our country, which is less known in East Asia, and to delineating the scientific outline of the influence of atmospheric circulation factors on the extreme precipitation indices, and it is a valuable result for researchers who focus on the mechanism for extreme rainfall events over the East Asia.
Our result was published in the journal "Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres "under the title of "Spatial and temporal patterns in observed extreme precipitation change over northern part of the Korean Peninsula"(https://doi.org/10.1029/2023JD039305).
