In 2021, such storms set all-time worldwide damage records, costing the United States $65 billion, Europe $43 billion, and China $30 billion. Recent years have seen a surge of major storms that have surpassed predictions for precipitation severity. (Photo : OLEKSANDR GIMANOV/AFP via Getty Images)
"We've shown that the answer to this seemingly little issue plays a significant effect in global climate change estimates."Īlso Read: Improved Climate Modeling Aims to Predict Increasing Flash Floods in the US "Whether the rain a cloud produces over its lifetime will increase or decrease in warmer climates is a research question that has been debated for over a half-century, and we are still looking for an answer," said Li, a graduate student at Yale's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and the study's first author. Unfortunately, many climate predictions appear to be underestimating future floods for the time being, according to the researchers. Even a little shift in the proportion of falling raindrops that reach the Earth's surface can make the difference between a climate of mild drizzles and one of the record deluges. (Photo : NORBERTO DUARTE/AFP/GettyImages) Assessing Climate ModelsĪccording to academics Ryan Li and Joshua Studholme in the journal Nature Climate Change, it all boils down to raindrop physics.