Climate Models Forecast Extreme Rainfall

Europe, North America and tropical regions could all face even harder rainfall if fossil fuel emissions continue to increase global warming.

Nobel literature laureate and songsmith Bob Dylan certainly got it right:  a hard rain is going to fall.  As global temperatures rise, extremes of torrential rain will increase accordingly, with the heaviest rainfall up to 15% more intense for every 1°C that the planet warms.

If global temperatures increase by 4°C by the end of the century – and climate studies say they could if the world goes on burning ever greater quantities of fossil fuel and dumping ever higher ratios of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere – then Europe and North America could see the consequences in terms of a 25% increase in extremes of catastrophic precipitation.

Rainfall could become even more extreme in some of the monsoon countries, but in the Mediterranean, Australia and South Africa the rain gauges would measure a less dramatic response, according to a new study in Nature Climate Change journal.

Research such as this is a consequence of the constant drive within science to test its own predictions.  Once again, the outcome of the study delivers confirmation.

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