Studies have shown that over the last 40 years, a warming climate has been accompanied by fewer rain- and snow-producing storms in mid-latitudes around the world, but the storms that are happening are a little stronger with more precipitation.
A new analysis of global satellite data suggests that these storm changes are affecting strongly the Earth's water cycle and air temperatures and creating contrasting cooling and warming effects in the atmosphere.
The mid-latitudes extend from the subtropics (approximately 30° N and S) to the Arctic Circle (66° 30" N) and the Antarctic Circle (66° 30" S) and include pieces of all of the continents with the exception of Antarctica.
George Tselioudis and William B. Rossow, both scientists at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and Columbia University, New York, authored the study that appears in the January issue of the American Geophysical Union's journal, Geophysical Research Letters.
"There are consequences of having fewer but stronger storms in the middle latitudes both on the radiation and on the precipitation fields," Tselioudis said. Using observations from the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) and the Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP), Tselioudis and Rossow determined how the changes in intensity and frequency of storms are both cooling and warming the atmosphere around the world.
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