When climate scientists look to the future to determine what the effects of climate change may be, they use computer models to simulate potential outcomes such as how precipitation will change in a warming world.
When climate scientists look to the future to determine what the effects of climate change may be, they use computer models to simulate potential outcomes such as how precipitation will change in a warming world.
But University of Michigan scientists are looking at something a little more tangible: coral.
Examining samples from corals in the Great Barrier Reef, the researchers discovered between 1750 and present day, as the global climate warmed, wet-season rainfall in that part of the world increased by about 10%, and the rate of extreme rain events more than doubled. Their results are published in Nature Communications Earth and Environment.
“Climate scientists often find themselves saying, ‘I knew it was going to get bad, but I didn’t think it was going to get this bad this fast.’ But we’re actually seeing it in this coral record,” said principal investigator Julia Cole, chair of the U-M Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences.
Read more at University of Michigan
Photo Credit: 127071 via Pixabay
