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Re:U.S. has its wettest 12 months on record again by mc32 on Tuesday July 09, 2019 @06:16PM (#20397236)
Should we expect dry (arid) regions around the world to experience more rainfall?
Re:U.S. has its wettest 12 months on record again by btilly on Tuesday July 09, 2019 @06:33PM (#20397395)
That depends on the region. As a well-known example, rainfall in California will decrease.

Here is an explanation. Take a pot of water. Heat one side. The water will start to circulate, come up where it is hot, fall where it is not, then cycle back.

The Earth's atmosphere does that as well. It rises in the tropics, spreads out, falls in temperate zones, then comes in. These circulation patterns are called the Hadley cells. They explain a lot of things. For example air that came from the equator, then spread out, is moving faster than the ground below it. That's the jet stream. And where it falls it is still moving. That sets up the prevailing wind on land, and the trade winds at sea.

One thing that they help explain is where things are dry. You see when air rises, the water falls out. So where air comes down, it is dry. Therefore the latitudes where it falls have lots of deserts.

Now one of the effects of global warming is that the Hadley cells get less stable, and also expand. Which means that arid zones in Mexico move north, and the Southern USA gets drier. But this comes with more instability in weather patterns.

So you see, it is complicated. Overall wetter does not mean wetter where you are...

Re:U.S. has its wettest 12 months on record again by mirimir on Tuesday July 09, 2019 @06:35PM (#20397409)
Some, yes, I've read. Africa and Indonesia may get wetter, and the Sahara could even switch back to rainforest.

But my "more water, so wetter" comment was about global averages. Given that global air and ocean circulation will change, some areas will probably get drier. Such as the US Midwest and Southwest, and perhaps the Amazon.

https://news.uci.edu/2018/04/27/scientists-project-a-drier-a...

https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/34232/201...

Re:U.S. has its wettest 12 months on record again by ajmurmann on Tuesday July 09, 2019 @07:21PM (#20397775)
Anecdotally it looks like parts of central Europe might also get drier.
Re:U.S. has its wettest 12 months on record again by mcone on Tuesday July 09, 2019 @06:49PM (#20397528)
Not in the Southwestern United States, where recent studies indicate that the odds for decades-long "megadrought" are as high as 99%.

https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/10/e1600873.full