Authors of New UW and UCLA Collaborative Study: Global Warming To Increase Storm Intensity And Rain Volume

(Above) A section of Wisconsin Highway 13 is washed out after heavy rains, south of Highbridge in Ashland, Wis., on July 12. Jeff Peters / AP

Climate scientists have been telling us for awhile now in Wisconsin to get ready for warmer, wetter weather. As things heat up, more water is evaporated into the atmosphere, more energy is added to the system, and you get more rain. Last month, the author’s of a new collaborative study involving climatologists at UCLA and mathematicians at the University of Wisconsin said, in a radio interview with WORT-FM’s Brian standing, who is the host of the station’s Monday morning 8 O’Clock Buzz show, that Wisconsin, as well  most other regions of the U.S., can expect much more rain as the atmosphere continues to warm directly resulting from rising greenhouse gas (GHGs) accumulations in the atmosphere over time, which are scientifically known to result from heavier rainfalls and more of them in the coming years, linked to the continuing buildup of human activity generated GHGs  (from coal and natural gas burning in power plants, homes, businesses, etc,; and petroleum product burning in automobiles, trucks, jet liners, etc.) in our atmosphere under today’s “business as usual” economic forecast.

Prior to this study, scientists had not predicted the actual accumulation of rain in predicted future storms, measuring instead the increasing strength of storms under continuing global warming with rising GHG accumulations in the atmosphere. Under this study, the authors said a 100-year flood in Wisconsin and most other regions of the U.S. would be more likely to occur in 50 years or less years unless we change our ways, and that the 100-year flood would have a significantly greater volume of total rainfall accumulation than previous years, which has important implications for infrastructure capacities and locating residential, community and business developments.

Brian Standing spoke on February 27, 2017, with Professor David Neelin of the University of California Los Angeles Department of Atmospheric Science and with Professor Sam Stechmann at the University of Wisconsin Madison’s Department of Mathematics who collaborated on the study.

  Hear interview and donate?) at WORT-FM.org.