Après Nous Le Déluge

01
November 2018

Après Nous Le Déluge

Scientists at Wuhan University, one of the most prestigious universities in China, published an article in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Nature Communications about the advent of the “era of endless rainfall and floods.” The meteophysicists investigated the process of converting the potential energy of heat into the kinetic energy of air masses. “We tried to uncover the physical mechanisms to understand what needs to be done to safeguard against these natural disasters. Our calculations allow us to obtain detailed and fairly accurate forecasts, ”said project manager Jiabo Yin.

The findings of the researchers supplemented the already rich collection of “horrors” of global warming: an increase in average planetary temperatures will lead to a sharp increase in heavy rains and, as a result, floods, the scale of which is clearly underestimated. Climatologists have long been interested in the influence of the accumulation of energy in the Earth’s atmosphere on the water cycle in nature. Jiabo Yin and his colleagues analyzed data collected over the past half-century at weather stations from all continents of our planet. This information allowed scientists to derive a set of formulas for determining not only the anomalous power of rain, but also the territories of their distribution. Calculations have shown that the frequency of showers and floods will increase by 40% for every additional degree of heat. The elements will mostly fall on northern and western Europe, the borderlands of the USA and Canada, as well as the southern regions of China. The main reason for the growth of these extreme events is a man and his centuries-old consumer attitude in land use, water resources and forest management.

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