More concentrated precipitation decreases terrestrial water storage

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By Corey S. Lesk & Justin S. Mankin, Science. 

Summary: ...When scientists analyzed global precipitation records from 1980 to 2022, they found that annual rainfall in much of the world has become more concentrated, leading to more intense storms interspersed with longer dry spells. ...soil can only soak up so much water at once. What’s left collects on the surface, where it more readily evaporates, leaving less water available for ecosystems even if overall precipitation increases. “Rainfall concentration is essentially asking the land to drink from a firehose ,” senior study author Justin Mankin said.... Using an economic tool typically used to measure wealth inequality, the researchers determined that the United States west of the Mississippi and South America’s Amazon River basin experienced particularly high levels of rain consolidation over the past 4 decades. In contrast, precipitation has become more distributed in the Arctic, Northern Europe, and Canada—changes that likely reflect an overall increase in year-round snow and rain as the regions became warmer due to climate change. Rainfall will become even more consolidated, the team predicts, as global temperatures continue to rise. An increase of 2°C, they report, could lead to abnormally dry land conditions for roughly a third of the world’s population. And that, in turn, could have economic consequences. “Precipitation, like wealth, exhibits a highly unequal distribution in the present day,” Mankin said, “and the expectation is that with global warming, inequality in both the economy and precipitation will increase.”... 

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