Rainfall fluctuates more vigorously. Why? Scientists say it’s because of us.
Many people worldwide have observed that rainfall is becoming increasingly erratic. Intense downpours are occurring more frequently, while dry periods seem to be lasting longer and becoming more severe. These shifts have raised concerns and prompted scientists to investigate the connections between climate change and these unpredictable rainfall patterns.
A new study provides the first systematic observational evidence that human-induced climate change is making rainfall patterns more volatile globally.
Published in the journal Science on July 26, a joint study by the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS), and the UK Met Office shows a systematic increase in rainfall variability since the 1900s from global to regional scales and from daily to intraseasonal timescales.
Understanding Increased Rainfall Variability
Rainfall variability refers to the unevenness in the timing and amount of rainfall. Higher variability means that precipitation is more unevenly distributed over time, resulting in wetter wet periods and drier dry periods. For example, some places may receive a year’s worth of rain in just a few days, have long dry spells followed by heavy downpours, or alternate rapidly between drought and flooding.
While climate models have predicted that this variability will increase with future warming, this study confirms that this pattern has already emerged over the past century.
By analyzing a wide range of observational data, the researchers found that rainfall variability has increased since the 1900s over 75% of the land areas studied, particularly in Europe, Australia, and eastern North America. The researchers found that daily rainfall variability has increased globally by 1.2% per decade.
“The increase in rainfall variability is mainly due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, which have led to a warmer and more humid atmosphere. This means that even if the atmospheric circulation remains the same, the additional moisture in the air leads to more intense rain events and more drastic fluctuations between them,” said Dr. Zhang Wenxia, lead author of the study and associate professor at IAP. “These changes are further influenced by regional atmospheric circulation patterns on decadal time scales.”
“The future we are anxious about is already here,” said Dr. Zhou Tianjun, a senior scientist at IAP and a professor at UCAS as well as the corresponding author of the study. “The increased variability in precipitation we observed adds crucial evidence of larger daily changes, making it more difficult to predict and prepare for environmental impacts.”
According to Dr. WU Peili, an expert scientist at the Met Office and co-author of the study, “Rapid and extreme shifts in climate patterns also pose significant risks to the climate resilience of infrastructure, economic development, ecosystem functioning, and carbon sinks.” In addition, he noted that “immediate adaptation measures are essential to address these challenges.”
Reference: “Anthropogenic amplification of precipitation variability over the past century” by Wenxia Zhang, Tianjun Zhou and Peili Wu, 25 July 2024, Science.
DOI: 10.1126/science.adp0212
5 Comments
And once again – a huge leap in reasoning. Just where in the rainfall data does one find the proof that humans are too blame? The mechanism they gave is just a bunch of nonsense.
And climate history didn’t start with the industrial revolution. If they find other episodes of greater rainfall variability over the eons, which I’m sure they will and have, that this episode would look much less impressive.
Go back to kindergarten brain dead.
Climactic changes of the past did not happen in the unbelievably short span of 50 to 100 tears.
What climate changes, moron?
Also, you spelled “climactic”, you s*** for brains.
Humans responsible for changes in rainfall variability 🤔
**** surely nothing to do with some countries cloudseeding? or what about Bill “I’m not a professional scientist but I play like I am” Gates deciding for all of humanity, without asking, to send a crap ton of confetti-like mirrors up into the sky to deal with our sun. All in the name of climate change. First let’s put the obvious fact on the table – THE CLIMATE CHANGES…..EVERY SINGLE FREAKING DAY!!!
Secondly, stop buying what THEY are saying because they speak with a forked tongue and are hoping they sound smart enough
when they throw in big words and numbers in a attempt to sound like they know what they are doing and therefore we should follow the pied piper. I understand that Global Warming was a fail for the liars in the 90’s and Global Cooling equally so, but to repackage the foolishness under the latest – Climate Change only tells me that there are some rich morons that don’t really use much of their brain power. What has been sad is watching the trickle down. That rich morons actually sold this idea to a lot of people in the income classes below theirs is just astonishing. Listening to the climate propaganda being parroted by people I thought were much smarter was mind-boggling. To think that people out there actually believe that we are capable of affecting the changes to our environment in such a short period of time smh. Never mind that the Earth is many millions of years old and will still exist long after we are gone. It is quite simple. Serious “damages” to the Earth that were dealt with was not caused by all of humanity and should be tossed back onto the lap of the very few who are actually responsible for the damages. I do my part that I am responsible for. Being mindful of your litter/trash, drinking water resources and the wastewater management are at the top of the list and everyone doing their part to be responsible for making sure those three are priority for managing is a great start. Stop decimating the rainforest and making sure to plant a tree if you fell a tree is very important and the responsible thing to do. My final statement concerns electric cars – it costs more to run a electric car in today’s world and is not environmentally friendly. Electric cars from the late 1800s- early 1900s were more efficient than today’s electric cars. Even hydrogen vehicles are a better choice. Before anyone spouts off that we are running out of water, NO WE ARE NOT. There is no lack except for that which is intentionally created to elicit some
type of change or action by the masses for serving their purpose and truly not for the benefit of humanity. My opinion only based on my own observations and research. I’ve been observing this since the early 90s. Don’t believe
me about what I’ve said but I encourage you to do your own research and come up with your own conclusions.