The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) comes to this conclusion in a study published on Wednesday, Accordingly, there will be more flooding and large agricultural harvest losses in the northern regions in the future. On the other hand, there are also more droughts, especially in Africa.
„One of the key conclusions of our study is that tropical and subtropical land regions generally have more dry records and northern wet to high latitudes more wet records,“ study co-author Dim Coumou said.
For the study, the authors systematically analyzed and quantified changes in monthly record precipitation events from around the world based on data from around 50,000 weather stations worldwide.
Accordingly, the record-breaking months in the eastern and central regions of the US increased by more than 25 percent between 1980 and 2013. Dry records were recorded in the Sahel and sub-Saharan Sahara, where dry extremes increased by up to 50 percent.
The scientists demanded from the participants in the UN Climate Change Conference in Katowice, Poland, a solution to limit global warming. Without an agreement, the earth will be heading for a warming of three to four degrees Celsius this century. „Physics tells us that this would add to the rainfall extremes,“ Lehmann said.
