Australia Facing Increased Intense Rain Storms

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Landmark study shows how heavy, short rain storms are intensifying more rapidly than would be expected with global warming.

Landmark study shows how heavy, short rain storms are intensifying more rapidly than would be expected with global warming.

The team of international scientists, led by Dr Selma Guerreiro at the School of Engineering, Newcastle University, UK, has for the first time found increases in short, intense rain storms over Australia over the past 50 years.

The storms are substantially larger than would be expected under climate change and researchers say this is likely to lead to increasing flash floods and urban flooding.

More severe flash floods in the future

Published today in Nature Climate Change, the study shows that in Australia:

Extreme daily rainfall events are increasing as would be expected from the levels of regional or global warming that we are experiencing

Read more at Newcastle University

Photo Credit: Murray Foubister via Wikimedia Commons