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Tropical Warming Tied to Flooding Rains
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| Contributor | ArmyDem |
| Last Edited | ArmyDem Aug 09, 2008 08:29am |
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| Category | News |
| Media | Newspaper - New York Times |
| News Date | Thursday, August 7, 2008 02:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: August 7, 2008
Scientists studying variations in tropical heat and rainfall since the mid-1980s have found a strong link between warm periods and a rise in the frequency of the most extreme downpours.
The observed rise in the heaviest tropical rains is about twice that produced by computer simulations used to assess how human-caused global warming could change rainfall, said the researchers.
Other studies have already measured a rise in recent decades in heavy rains in areas as varied as North America and India, and climatologists have long forecast more heavy rainstorms in a world warmed by accumulating greenhouse gases.
But this analysis, using satellite measurements, is the first to find a strong statistical link between warmth and extreme tropical downpours, the researchers said.
The study was published Thursday in the online journal Science Express. The authors were Richard P. Allan of the University of Reading in England and Brian J. Soden at the University of Miami.
While a general relationship between warming and more flooding rains is already widely accepted, the new paper is important “because it uses observations to demonstrate the sensitivity of extreme rainfall to temperature,” said Anthony J. Broccoli, the director of the Center for Environmental Prediction at Rutgers University. |
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