Days Without Rain to Increase by End of The Century

Researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, revealed in a study this week that select parts of the world can expect 30 days a year without precipitation by the end of the century.

The study was published in Scientific Reports, an open-access journal from Nature Publishing Group.

Climate change, caused mainly by human influences, will change how rain and snow falls. For example, areas that are considered dry locations will receive their precipitation in narrower windows of time, according to the study, according to a press release issued by the school.

"Changes in intensity of precipitation events and duration of intervals between those events will have direct effects on vegetation and soil moisture," said Stephen Jackson, director of the U.S. Department of the Interior Southwest Climate Science Center, which co-funded the study, according to the release.

Computer model projections of future conditions suggests that regions like the Amazon, Central America, Mediterranean, and Indonesia will see the greatest increase in the number of "dry days" per year, according to the Scripps team.

These locations will go without rain for as much as 30 days or more every year.

"We expect to see more intense extreme rainfall events likely because of climate change, which will amount to little change in annual rainfall," said Scripps meteorologist Alexander Gershunov, according to the press release.

California will likely have "five to 10" more dry days every year.

Suraj Polade, a postdoctoral researcher at Scripps, and the study's lead author, said that one of the implications of this discovery is that annual rainfall will likely become not as reliable in drying regions. Annual averages will be calculated over a smaller number of days as well.

"Looking at changes in the number of dry days per year is a new way of understanding how climate change will affect us that goes beyond just annual or seasonal mean precipitation changes, and allows us to better adapt to and mitigate the impacts of local hydrological changes," Polade said, according to the press release.