Climate Change and Tropical Rainfall Shift
Summary: Northward Shift in Tropical Rainfall Due to Carbon Emissions
A study led by Professor Wei Liu at UC Riverside predicts a northward shift in tropical rain due to unchecked carbon emissions, significantly impacting agriculture and economies around the equator. Regions such as Central African countries, Northern South America, and Pacific Island countries are expected to experience the most acute effects.
Key Findings:
- Tropical Rainfall Change: The northward shift in rainfall is linked to complex atmospheric changes caused by carbon emissions, particularly affecting the formation of tropical convergence zones, which generate one-third of the world’s rainfall.
- Impact on Agriculture: Major tropical crops like coffee, cocoa, palm oil, bananas, sugarcane, tea, mangoes, and pineapples, grown in equatorial regions, may face production issues due to unstable rainfall. This shift is expected to last about 20 years before moving back south for nearly a millennium due to Southern Ocean warming.
- Understanding Convergence Zones: These zones act like a conveyor belt for moisture, where trade winds from both hemispheres meet, rise, and form thunderclouds, resulting in heavy rainfall.
- Atmospheric Influence of Carbon Emissions: Advanced computer models used by researchers simulate the real-world effects of continued fossil fuel burning, showing how carbon emissions drive the northward shift of rain-producing convergence zones by an average of 0.2 degrees.
Conclusion:
The potential short-term shift in tropical rainfall patterns due to climate change could have long-term effects on agriculture and economies near the equator. This study highlights the urgent need to address global carbon emissions.
The study is published in the journal Nature Climate Change.