Warming Temperatures Making “Weather Whiplash” More Common
CEE Distinguished Professor Auroop Ganguly examines how rising temperatures are causing rapid transitions in the weather, leading to catastrophic natural disasters.
This article originally appeared on Northeastern Global News. It was published by Cynthia McCormick Hibbert. Main photo: A man stands next to a bridge destroyed by deadly floods in Chavies, Kentucky in 2022. Heavy rainfall followed drought, a phenomenon known as weather whiplash. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, File).
What is ‘weather whiplash’? And why scientists say it’s becoming the new normal
In the days before a catastrophic flash flood swept through rural Texas over the July 4 weekend, the region was parched by drought.
Even as search crews trudged through mud and debris in search of victims — at least 135 people lost their lives — some parts of the county remained super dry.
The rapid swing between drought and heavy precipitation is known as weather whiplash.
Northeastern University researchers say to expect more of it in the future.
A relatively new term
The term “weather whiplash,” or “climate whiplash,” is relatively new in scientific literature, according to Samuel Munoz, an associate professor of marine and environmental sciences at Northeastern.
“It’s a rapid transition from unusually dry conditions to unusually wet conditions, or the opposite, from unusually wet to unusually dry,” he says. “So a quick transition from dry to wet or wet to dry.”
The rapid cycle from wet to dry is also potentially destructive. In California it has created the perfect conditions for wildfires after heavy rains gave rise to an explosion of plant life that then acted as combustible fuel in hot, dry weather.
Driven by warmth
“The concern is these kinds of events could become more frequent in some places,” Munoz says.
“It is all driven by warmth,” says Auroop Ganguly, Northeastern distinguished professor of civil and environmental engineering.
The Earth’s average surface air temperature has warmed by one degree Celsius, or 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, since 1900, with more than half of the increase coming since the mid-1970s.
“There have been reports that say that precipitation extremes intensify on an average by around 7% per degree warming, although that varies significantly regionally and seasonally,” Ganguly says.
He says the extra heat means water evaporates from the surface more quickly when there is less water, leading to intensification of droughts.
When there is more water, the Earth’s atmosphere can allow more of that water to be absorbed, leading to intensification in the extremes of rainfall or snow when conditions are right for precipitation to occur, Ganguly says.
Read full story at Northeastern Global News