Now that late spring/early summer is upon us, there’s increasingly more headlines about less rain in various places (recent floods notwithstanding). I’m assuming that’s because water is evaporating and not returning to those places, but where is it going?
Is it arriving, now, in these bursty flash floods? Is it staying longer in the atmosphere and moving to new locations? Is more of it just staying in the atmosphere period?
Climate change is moving water around, not creating or destroying it. Warmer air holds more water, so overall, the atmosphere can hold (and at times drop) more water than before. Permanent ice is melting as well, so that puts a bit more fresh water into the air and ocean. The water in the atmosphere is constantly circling the globe, forced largely by the rotation of the earth. Warmer temperature also makes for more evapotranspiration, so more fresh surface water is pulled into the air. But that same water will eventually fall elsewhere.
The sun is the source of energy that drives wind, rain, and evaporation. When you trap more of that energy with GHGs, it just turns up the volume for all of those things. There’s always seasonal and geographic variability, but the extremes increase because all those phenomena are solar powered.
Cool, that’s more of what I meant when I said “where is it going?” I didn’t think it was disappearing; I more meant, “Where is it being stored or released?” Makes sense why there would be more of it when precipitation does show up, given that hotter air can store more.
I’m still curious, though, if certain local patterns are moving off to other locations. I’ll have to look into that aspect, now that I kind of have an idea what to look for.
There’s been talk of some crops being able to be grown further north or south. But most of the weather patterns of a region are a function of proximity to ocean, predominant winds, and topography. It’s important not to confuse weather and climate. For a given drought or flood people may want to point to climate change as a cause, but it’s only going to amplify patterns that already existed.