What is it about?
Our analysis shows that rainfall patterns over the globe have shrunk between 1950 and 2020 while the total rainfall has increased. Both the global fractional area of daily rainfall and the spatial scales of daily rainfall patterns have decreased.
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Photo by Timothy Ah Koy on Unsplash
Why is it important?
More water coming from the sky, pressed into smaller and more concentrated wet spots, imply both higher flood risk where the rain falls and higher drought risk in the regions between the rains. The latter consequence is because the probability (frequency) of receiving rainfall diminishes when it is concentrated into a smaller area.
Perspectives
This analysis provides a new way of looking at global rainfall patterns as there are few previous studies which have examined the area of the global daily precipitation. The trends may have been affected by changing input from satellite observations over time, and follow-up studies are needed to confirm this tendency.
Dr. Rasmus E. Benestad
The Norwegian Meteorological Institute
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Global hydro-climatological indicators and changes in the global hydrological cycle and rainfall patterns, PLOS Climate, May 2022, PLOS,
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000029.
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