Climate change may shift rainfall patterns, claims study
What's the story
In the future, climate change will cause an uneven shifting of the tropical rain belt, leading to increased flooding in parts of India, a new study warns.
The study, published in Nature Climate Change, examined computer simulations from 27 state-of-the-art climate models and measured tropical rain belt's response to a future scenario where greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise through the end of century.
Weather changes
Northward shift of the tropical rain belt may intensify floods
According to the research, a northward shift of the tropical rain belt over eastern Africa and the Indian Ocean could result in "intensified flooding in southern India," and may impact global biodiversity and food security by 2100.
The current study highlighted the drastic alterations to come over future decades in India by isolating the response in the Eastern and Western Hemisphere zones.
Information
Shift of the rain belt was disguised in previous studies
The scientists said this sweeping shift of the rain belt was disguised in previous studies that provided a global average of the influence of climate change. However, climate change caused the atmosphere to heat up by different amounts over Asia and the North Atlantic Ocean.
Impact of climate change
Rain belt is shifting toward the fast-heating atmosphere
"In Asia, projected reductions in aerosol emissions, glacier melting in the Himalayas, and loss of snow cover in northern areas brought on by climate change will cause the atmosphere to heat up faster," said study co-author James Randerson from UC Irvine.
The rain belt shifts toward this heating and its northward movement in Eastern Hemisphere are consistent with the expected impacts of climate change.
Study methods
Study reveals subtle effects of global warming on regional rainfall
According to scientists, the study combined the engineering approach of system thinking with data analytics and climate science to reveal subtle manifestations of global warming on regional rainfall extremes.
"The complexity of the Earth system is daunting, with dependencies and feedback loops across many processes and scales," said Efi Foufoula-Georgiou, another co-author of the study from the University of California (UC) Irvine.