14 DAY TRIAL // According to the conclusions of a new scientific study, it would appear that short-term climate variations are going astray over as much as a third of Earth. These changes affect factors such as cloud cover and rainfall, as well as the amount of sunshine a certain region receives.
Usually, these differences maintain themselves constant, but lately that no longer seems to be the case. Researchers say that climate change is the most likely culprit behind these changes, as evidenced in the new study as well.
The investigation – which was conducted by a team of researchers at the Princeton University – is detailed in a paper published in a recent issue of the esteemed Journal of Climate. Its main conclusion is that these climate variations are growing to be increasingly extreme.
The paper also shows that the number of days which are either extremely sunny or extremely cloudy has increased significantly over the past 30 years. The group used the early 1980s as a baseline measurement for the research.
At the same time, from the late 1990s onwards, the number of dry days and nights featuring thunderstorms has increased significantly as well. Researchers are not talking here about climate variations, but rather about long-term variations in trends.
This investigation was only made possible by a research tool that allows investigators to look at weather data for individual days. This is the first time such an ability is achieved, explains the lead author of the investigation, David Medvigy.
The expert, who is an assistant professor in the Princeton Department of Geosciences, carried out the study with Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences postdoctoral research fellow Claudie Beaulieu, also a coauthor of the research.
“Monthly averages reflect a misty world that is a little rainy and cloudy every day. That is very different from the weather of our actual world, where some days are very sunny and dry,” Medvigy explains.
“Our work adds to what we know about climate change in the real world and places the whole problem of climate change in a new light. Nobody has looked for these daily changes on a global scale,” he adds.
“We usually think of climate change as an increase in mean global temperature and potentially more extreme conditions – there's practically no discussion of day-to-day variability,” the investigator concludes.