The Atmospheric River of the type that wet California and the British Columbia flood in a few weeks will be bigger – and may be more destructive – because of climate change, scientists said.
The column in the atmosphere of hundreds of miles long carrying water vapor over the ocean of tropics to a more climate area more than doubled the flow of the Amazon River, according to the American Meteorological Society.
“The river in the sky” is relatively common, with around 11 present on earth anytime, according to NASA.
But warming air and sea throughout the world caused the conditions that scientists would say they would hold them more moisture, causing extreme rainfall when they made land, often on the west coast of North America, South America and Western Europe.
Because of climate change, the atmosphere river is projected to be a little less frequent, but more intense, according to research 2018 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1076968 led by researchers from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“There may be fewer, but they will last longer, and more intense,” Vicky Espinoza, an NASA study writer who is now graduate student at the University of California Merced, said.
The atmosphere river will be around 10% less than the end of this century, but around 25% longer and wider, this research was found.
It will lead to almost double the most intense frequency of the atmospheric river storm.
The weak atmospheric river system provides rain and snow needed for freshwater supplies.
However, a stronger storm can cause floods and extreme winds that interfere with travel, causing landslides and damaging property.
One such event in Canada this month dumped rain a month in two days, encouraging fatal floods and landslides in British Columbia, a devastating community and separating access to the largest port in the country https: // wusiness / canins-finding- Some lazy-alternative-wheat-oil-cut-of-flood-2021-11-17.
They are not always awesome.
One of the storms last month in California was beaten by drought triggering Mudslides, crashing into a utility pole and blocking the highway, but also helps refill reservoirs that are used up and reduce the risk of forest fires by fulfilling dry vegetation.
“Because everything is very dry in California, there are many benefits from the storm,” said Julie Kalansky, Deputy Director of Operations at the Western weather center and extreme water at the Oceanographic Scripps institution.
The atmosphere river that hit California last month accompanied by what was called “cyclone bomb,” the weather hazard that holds more rainfall and produces stronger winds.
“It’s like the Cyclone engine supercharges,” said Carl Schreck, a researcher with the North Carolina State University Cooperative Institute for the study of the satellite earth system.
But when events in Canada have shown, when thick rainfall falls in a stricken area of ​​fire the results can destroy.
Forest fires, such as those who hit British Columbia this summer, destroy the canopy of trees that capture rain and roots that suck into moisture and stick to the ground.
The fire left a thick ash layer along the forest floor.
“Not only we have more than what is called this Atmospheric River, but we also have a secondary effect added from heat and dryness …
which then strengthens the effects of heavy rain storms,” ​​said Matthias Jakob, a Geosman expert with BCG technique Canada.