When it rains , it pours . spunk appointment , line offers , and bad news all abide by this axiom . But it turns out that precipitation itself does , too .
Heavy deluge have been on the ascension thanks to climate change . But a new field of study inGeophysical Research Lettersputs why that weigh in context . It turns out that on average , half the world ’s rain falls in just 12 days a year .
This does n’t intend that there are just 12 24-hour interval where the total planet gets hammered with rain and nose candy a la The Day After Tomorrow . Rather it ’s that many places get half their yearly rainfall over their 12 wettest days . And those wettest 24-hour interval are getting wetter , meaning in the next tear of raininess are likely to become even more concentrated .
If the fact that it takes just 3 percent of the year for half the world ’s rainwater to accrue stupor you , you ’re not alone . The scientists who wrote the survey were astounded , too . Angeline Pendergrass , a clime scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research , told Earther she had toying with the question of measure how long it takes for the planet ’s rainfall to pile up . After some tinkering , she make for up a rough secret plan and showed it to a few other researcher during talks she gave .
“ Everyone I show it to was really surprised at how prominent a contribution extreme precipitation was to total precipitation , ” she said . “ I was surprised , too . ”
And thus , a study was born . First , Pendergrass and a confrere gain rain data from a variety of rootage . That included high caliber weather condition post data for most of the world from 1999 - 2014 as well satellite information that provides an estimation of precipitation around the globe , let in areas with a paucity of stations like Africa and South America . They also used clime models to figure precipitation changes by century ’s remainder .
The results show that a fourth of all hurry fall in six days , half in 12 days and a whopping three - quarters of it falls in 27 days .
The upshot vary around the world . The dry nature of the Southwest or Western Australia means in those place , plastered twenty-four hour period can pile up an even bigger chunk of the year ’s precipitation . In place that are uniformly wet like the UK or the tropic , it takes more daylight to amass a half class ’s Charles Frederick Worth of rainfall .
mood change is likely to amplify the extremes even further as it combines to make sound downpours more vernacular and intense , while simultaneously pushing wet shoes to be wetter and wry places to be dry . By the final stage of the century , the survey shows those trends will trim a mean solar day off the half yr of rain mark , lowering it from 12 years to 11 day .
“ It ’s mindbendy that what cease up happening with distribution of precipitation in response to heating is you have more floods and more drought , ” Pendergrass say .
Indeed , the impacts of change precipitation pattern are far - ranging and potentially severe . In a world ofincreasing weather whiplash injury , reservoirs will have to be able to take up and safely store rainfall in bigger gulps , farmers will have to ready for drouth as well as get their fields flooded , and metropolis will have to reconfigure their sewer , bridges , transit system , and well , essentially everything .
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