Understanding changes in extreme precipitation

Most climate scientists agree that heavy rainfall will become even more extreme and frequent in a warmer climate. This is because warm air can hold more moisture than cold air, resulting in heavier rainfall.

Little Ice Age displaced the tropical rain belt

The tropical rain belt, also known as the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), is in a state of constant migration. It continuously changes position in response to the seasons and follows the sun's zenith, with a slight ...

Shifting monsoon altered early cultures in China, study says

The annual summer monsoon that drops rain onto East Asia, an area with about a billion people, has shifted dramatically in the distant past, at times moving northward by as much as 400 kilometers and doubling rainfall in ...

A hard rain to fall in Australia with climate change

Dorothy Mackellar's classic view of Australia as a country of droughts and flooding rains is likely to get a further boost with just a 2°C rise in global warming, new research suggests.

Salty oceans can forecast rain on land

At this week's American Geophysical Union meeting, a team of researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) presented their latest research findings on the long-range predictions of rainfall on land. Their ...

6,000 years ago, the Sahara desert was tropical—what happened?

As little as 6,000 years ago, the vast Sahara Desert was covered in grassland that received plenty of rainfall, but shifts in the world's weather patterns abruptly transformed the vegetated region into some of the driest ...

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