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https://theconversation.com/supercharged-thunderstorms-have-we-underestimated-how-climate-change-drives-extreme-rain-and-floods-228896>
"In media articles about unprecedented flooding, you’ll often come across the
statement that for every 1°C of warming, the atmosphere can hold about 7% more
moisture.
This figure comes from research undertaken by the French engineer Sadi Carnot
and published 200 years ago this year.
We now know there’s more to the story. Yes, a hotter atmosphere has the
capacity to hold more moisture. But the condensation of water vapour to make
rain droplets releases heat. This, in turn, can fuel stronger convection in
thunderstorms, which can then dump substantially more rain.
This means that the intensity of extreme rainfall could increase by much more
than 7% per degree of warming. What we’re seeing is that thunderstorms can
likely dump about double or triple that rate – around 14–21% more rain for each
degree of warming.
Thunderstorms are a major cause of extreme flooding around the world,
contributing to Brazil’s disastrous floods, which have submerged hundreds of
towns, and Dubai’s flooded airport and roads.
For Australia, we helped develop a comprehensive review of the latest climate
science to guide preparedness for future floods. This showed the increase per
degree of global warming was about 7–28% for hourly or shorter duration extreme
rain, and 2–15% for daily or longer extreme rain. This is much higher than
figures in the existing flood planning standards recommending a general
increase of 5% per degree of warming."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
