Atmospheric rivers (ARs) are characterized by intense moisture transport, which, on landfall, produce precipitation which can be both beneficial and destructive. ARs in California, for example, are known to have ended drought conditions but also to have caused substantial socio-economic damage from landslides and flooding linked to extreme precipitation. Understanding how AR characteristics will respond to a warming climate is, therefore, vital to the resilience of communities affected by them, such as the western USA, Europe, East Asia and South Africa. In this Review, we use a theoretical framework to synthesize understanding of the dynamic and thermodynamic responses of ARs to anthropogenic warming and connect them to observed and projected changes and impacts revealed by observations and complex models. Evidence suggests that increased atmospheric moisture (governed by Clausius–Clapeyron scaling) will enhance the intensity of AR-related precipitation — and related hydrological extremes — but with changes that are ultimately linked to topographic barriers. However, due to their dependency on both weather and climate-scale processes, which themselves are often poorly constrained, projections are uncertain. To build confidence and improve resilience, future work must focus efforts on characterizing the multiscale development of ARs and in obtaining observations from understudied regions, including the West Pacific, South Pacific and South Atlantic.

大气河流的特征是强烈的水汽输送，在登陆时会产生有益和破坏性的降水。例如，众所周知，加利福尼亚州的AR终结了干旱条件，但也因与极端降水有关的滑坡和洪水而造成了严重的社会经济损失。因此，了解AR特性将如何响应变暖的气候对于受其影响的社区（如美国西部，欧洲，东亚和南非）的复原力至关重要。在本综述中，我们使用理论框架来综合了解AR对人为变暖的动态和热力学响应，并将其与观测值和复杂模型所观测到的预测变化和影响联系起来。有证据表明，大气湿度的增加（由克劳修斯–克拉珀龙结垢控制）将增强与AR有关的降水强度和相关的水文极端现象，但其变化最终与地形障碍有关。但是，由于它们既依赖天气和气候尺度过程，又往往受约束程度很低，因此不确定。为了建立信心并提高抵御能力，未来的工作必须集中精力描述AR的多尺度发展特征，并从包括西太平洋，南太平洋和南大西洋在内的受研究不足的地区获取观测资料。