ENVIRONMENT
Study points to rainier tropics
A new study co-written by a University of Miami professor suggests global warming will bring more rain in the tropics.
Posted on Fri, Aug. 08, 2008
BY EVAN S. BENN
Florida and the rest of the tropics will face wetter and more powerful rainstorms because of global warming, according to a new study co-written by a University of Miami professor released Thursday.
''We expect heavy rain events to increase,'' said Brian Soden, who researches climate change at the university's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. ``As the climate gets warmer, there is more moisture in the atmosphere. So, when thunderstorms develop, they produce more rainfall.''
Soden's study is the first to use observational evidence from the past 20 years to determine a link between warmer temperatures and an increase in tropical rainfall. A preview of his findings is posted online at sciencemag.org, and the full version will be published in the journal Science.
UPDATES ESTIMATES
The study, which was co-written by Richard Allan, a researcher at the University of Reading in England, found that previous estimates of rainfall increases may have been low.
''We looked at 10 million different satellite measurements, and they were consistent with our hypothesis,'' Soden said. ``The implication, then, is that previous model projections may have under-predicted the increase in major rain events.''
And what about hurricanes, South Florida's most worrisome rain events?
Soden emphasized that his research does not link human-caused global warming with more hurricanes, but it does suggest that future hurricanes may produce more rain.
That meshes with a May study from government meteorologists that predicted fewer but more powerful hurricanes by the end of this century. Tom Knutson, a research meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, concluded that greenhouse gas-induced global warming is not causing more hurricanes to form.
Even as the debate rages on in the scientific community about the link, if any, between climate change and hurricane activity, Soden said there is no debate that global warming is real and should be the object of further research.
CONSIDER IMPACT
''We're confident about the reality of global warming,'' he said. ``Now the issue is, how can we look at events like rainstorms and flooding so we can lessen their economic impacts?''
But the connection Soden's study draws between global warming and increased precipitation might be ''a stretch,'' said Isaac Held, a senior research scientist at NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, N.J.
''The satellite data is not of long enough duration to look at any global warming trends,'' Held said. ``It looks at El Niño conditions only, and El Niño is not a perfect analog for global warming.''
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Audio | Interview with UM professor Brian Soden