“New” research confirming what Kevin Trenberth (above) and others were telling me 10 years ago.
I find its good to review these Q and As from time to time as I pick up on more insights that I might not have heard at the time.
Worth considering as we head into an El Niño summer.
Another one for the weird science file.
New research shows that although the world is seeing more rain overall, it’s also getting drier at the same time.
How can that be? In simple terms, the world’s rainfall is increasingly packed into bigger storms with longer dry spells in between. And a lot of rain all at once causes problems for overwhelmed soil.
The findings say the study is the first to demonstrate that a year’s worth of rainfall packed into bigger and wetter storms means less water for aquifers and ecosystems, even if total precipitation increases. Because soil can absorb only so much water at once, what is not soaked up collects on the surface where it’s more readily evaporated.
Study lead author Corey Lesk, who led the study while a fellow at Dartmouth College, explained it in an email to USA TODAY: “Regardless of how much precipitation falls, when rain and snow come in stronger bursts separated by longer dry spells, less water tends to remain on the land (in soils, lakes, and groundwater) for use by people and nature.”
Researchers analyzed global precipitation records from 1980 to 2022 and determined that annual rainfall has become more concentrated regardless of whether the local climate is wet or dry, according to the new study published May 13 in the peer-reviewed British journal Nature.
“We discovered that it’s not just supply that counts, but also how it’s delivered,” said Justin Mankin, the study’s senior author and an associate professor of geography at Dartmouth, in a statement. “Rainfall concentration is essentially asking the land to drink from a firehose. When rainfall is intense, you get more consecutive dry days, but more important is that heavier rains lead to surface ponding that is more easily evaporated by the atmosphere,” he added.
“It doesn’t matter where you are, more consolidated rainfall means less water is available for the land,” Mankin said.