Sentences with phrase «although precipitation changes»

Not exact matches

Although the study does not directly identify a link between this type of variation and current climate change vulnerability, these precipitation - linked variables could be a source of vulnerability in the future, Bay and her colleagues noted.

«It is very hard to attribute a specific human contribution to a change in precipitation, although we do have more confidence in the changes in heat,» Karl said.

And lastly, although the models get the precipitation trends spot - on, they «significantly underestimate the magnitude of change [in rainfall],» Hegerl admits, explaining that better modeling is near the top of the agenda for the researchers.

Although the rising average global surface temperature is an indicator of the degree of disruption that we have imposed on the global climate system, what's actually happening involves changes in circulation patterns, changes in precipitation patterns, and changes in extremes.

Although there is still some disagreement in the preliminary results (eg the description of polar ice caps), a lot of things appear to be quite robust as the climate models for instance indicate consistent patterns of surface warming and rainfall trends: the models tend to agree on a stronger warming in the Arctic and stronger precipitation changes in the Topics (see crude examples for the SRES A1b scenarios given in Figures 1 & 2; Note, the degrees of freedom varies with latitude, so that the uncertainty of these estimates are greater near the poles).

... There are many papers detailing changes in water vapor and precipitation (although the literature is confusing).

-- Projected precipitation and temperature changes imply changes in floods, although overall there is low confidence at the global scale regarding climate - driven changes in magnitude or frequency of river - related flooding, due to limited evidence and because the causes of regional changes are complex.

For the entire Northern Hemisphere, there is evidence of an increase in both storm frequency and intensity during the cold season since 1950,1 with storm tracks having shifted slightly towards the poles.2, 3 Extremely heavy snowstorms increased in number during the last century in northern and eastern parts of the United States, but have been less frequent since 2000.11,15 Total seasonal snowfall has generally decreased in southern and some western areas, 16 increased in the northern Great Plains and Great Lakes region, 16,17 and not changed in other areas, such as the Sierra Nevada, although snow is melting earlier in the year and more precipitation is falling as rain versus snow.18 Very snowy winters have generally been decreasing in frequency in most regions over the last 10 to 20 years, although the Northeast has been seeing a normal number of such winters.19 Heavier - than - normal snowfalls recently observed in the Midwest and Northeast U.S. in some years, with little snow in other years, are consistent with indications of increased blocking (a large scale pressure pattern with little or no movement) of the wintertime circulation of the Northern Hemisphere.5 However, conclusions about trends in blocking have been found to depend on the method of analysis, 6 so the assessment and attribution of trends in blocking remains an active research area.

For instance, Milly et al., 2003 (Open access) used computer simulations and results from the CMAP reanalysis of precipitation levels to calculate that climate - related changes in water storage on land were causing a sea - level rise of about 0.12 mm / year in the period 1981 - 1998 (although, they admitted they couldn't calculate an error bar for that estimate).

Although there is as yet no convincing evidence in the observed record of changes in tropical cyclone behaviour, a synthesis of the recent model results indicates that, for the future warmer climate, tropical cyclones will show increased peak wind speed and increased mean and peak precipitation intensities.

Also the spatial structure of changes in precipitation linked to altered surface temperature by convection can be improved by using higher resolution model experiments, although the relative gain here is generally small (Di Luca et al, 2012).

Although many areas of the globe have not been analysed, and considerable data remain inaccessible, enough data have been analysed to confirm some basic properties of the changes in extreme precipitation.

Although, in the tropics, glacier mass balance responds sensitively to changes in precipitation and humidity (see Lemke et al., 2007, Section 4.5.3), the fast glacier shrinkage of Chacaltaya is consistent with an ascent of the 0 °C isotherm of about 50 m / decade in the tropical Andes since the 1980s (Vuille et al., 2003), resulting in a corresponding rise in the equilibrium line of glaciers in the region (Coudrain et al., 2005).

Although there is clearly value in understanding possible changes in precipitation, our results highlight the fact that efforts to understand drought without examining the role of temperature miss a critical contributor to drought risk.

Although these hydrological changes could potentially increase soil water availability in previously snow - covered regions during the cool low - ET season (34), this effect would likely be outweighed by the influence of warming temperatures (and decreased runoff) during the warm high - ET season (36, 38), as well as by the increasing occurrence of consecutive years with low precipitation and high temperature (Fig. 4A).

... Projected precipitation and temperature changes imply possible changes in floods, although overall there is low confidence in projections of changes in fluvial floods.»

We find that although there has not been a substantial change in the probability of either negative or moderately negative precipitation anomalies in recent decades, the occurrence of drought years has been greater in the past two decades than in the preceding century.

The patterns and magnitude of the precipitation changes (scaled to a global mean warming of 4 °C) are similar in the high - end and non-high-end models, although the reductions in precipitation tend to be slightly greater in the high - end models.

Although tropical precipitation change remains uncertain, nearly all models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 predict a strengthening zonal precipitation asymmetry by 2100, with relative increases over Asian and African tropical forests and decreases over South American forests.

The areas with enhanced warming over the USA may also be caused by drier soils from reduced precipitation, although the poor model agreement in precipitation changes for this region means this conclusion is uncertain.

For instance, along with possible carbon fertilisation effects and a longer growing season (Chapter 5), many mid - and upper - latitude areas see quality - of - life benefits from winter warming, and some areas welcome changes in precipitation patterns, although such changes could have other social consequences.