Climate warming is causing a decrease in snowfall and increase in rainfall at high altitudes in the Northern Hemisphere. Now a study published in Nature has predicted an increase in the risk of extreme rainfall events.
The intensity and frequency of extreme precipitation events is expected to increase as global warming continues to affect the planet. Of particular concern are extremes in rainfall, which often cause more damage than similar snowfall events due to their instantaneous runoff, increasing the risk of floods, which can cause infrastructure damage and landslides. Precisely how increases in global temperature will affect extreme rainfall events remains unclear.
To assess how climate change might be driving a shift in precipitation patterns, researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California combined data from climate observations from between 1950 and 2019 with future projections, up to 2100, taken from Earth system models. Their results suggest that warming is causing an increase in rainfall extremes within regions of high elevation in the Northern Hemisphere, particularly in regions usually dominated by snowfall.
