An analysis of data from more than 1,500 regions over the past 40 years shows a clear link and suggests that the increased daily rainfall caused by climate change due to the burning of oil and coal is damaging the global economy.
“It’s about prosperity and ultimately people’s jobs. Rainy days and extreme daily rains are slowing economies around the world – an important vision that will increase our growing understanding of the real costs of climate change,” he said. Leonie Wenz the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC).
“Macroeconomic assessments of the effects of climate have so far focused mostly on temperature and take into account – if at all – changes in rainfall only over a longer time scale, such as years or months, so there is no overall picture,” Wenz explains.
“While annual rainfall is generally good for economies, especially those dependent on agriculture, it is also a question of how rainfall is distributed over the anniversaries. Increasing daily rainfall is proving bad, especially for affluent industrialized countries like the United States, Japan or Germany.”
Maximilian Kotz, the first author of the study and also the Potsdam Institute said they recognized a number of clear effects on economic production, but the most important of these is indeed extreme daily rainfall.
“This is because, in extreme rainfall, we can already see the effects of climate change most clearly and because they are intensifying almost everywhere in the world.”
According to the release, the analysis has statistically evaluated data collected and made publicly available by the MCC and PIK on the regional economy of 1554 regions worldwide between 1979 and 2019.
“Scientists combine these with high-resolution rainfall data. The combination of ever-increasing details of climate and economic data is especially important in the context of rain, a very local phenomenon, and revealed new insights,” it said.
“By polluting the Earth’s atmosphere with the greenhouse gases from fossil fuels and cars, humanity is warming the planet. Warming air can sequester more water vapor, which eventually turns to rain.
The study reveals that it is precisely the fingerprint of global warming in daily rains that has enormous economic impacts that have not yet been considered, but which are very important, says another author. Anders Levermann, Director of Complexity at the Potsdam Institute, Professor at the University of Potsdam and Researcher at the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University in New York.
“A closer look at short time scales rather than annual averages will help us understand what’s going on: the threat is daily rainfall. Climate shocks from extreme weather are threatening our way of life rather than gradual change. “
Source: ANI