How can climate change cause both rain and drought?

(24 Mar 2025)
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ASSOCIATED PRESS:
1. Animation that explains how climate change causes both torrential rain and worse drought
STORYLINE:
How can climate change cause both more torrential rain and worse droughts? Water constantly moves back and forth between the earth and its atmosphere.

It goes up into the sky in the form of evaporation, which turns into clouds and then comes back down as rain. The water cycle is accelerating as the atmosphere heats up.

Climate change, which is caused by the burning of fuels like gas and coal. Often the result is more extremes either too much water or not enough.
Oceans absorb most of the planet’s extra heat. This causes water to expand and ice to melt the poles or using sea levels and more water evaporates.

Meanwhile, a hotter atmosphere holds more water vapor. At 7% more for every degree Celsius and moisture eventually falls back to land, sometimes in the form of hard rain.

It causes catastrophic flooding, including areas that have become drier because of years of drought, longer periods of hotter temperatures and less rain, dry out soil and cause plants to lose water.
If that last long enough can lead to drought. In some places, arid areas are expanding and becoming permanent.

The US West illustrates some of the whiplash effects of climate change. Snowpack is needed to farm fields and to fill reservoirs with drinking water.
But after extended drought, much of the snowmelt is absorbed by thirsty soil. Instead of running into waterways. When it does rain or snow, it’s often intense.

For example, California was inundated with heavy rain and snow in 2023 that generated more vegetation and helped feed fires or drought returned, scientists say. These changes to the water cycle underscore the need to combat climate change.

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