CLIMATE SCIENCE: Dry and Getting Drier

Global land moisture trends: drier in dry and wetter in wet over land

The "dry gets drier, wet gets wetter" (DGDWGW) paradigm is widely accepted in global moisture change. However, Greve et al. have declared that this paradigm has been overestimated. This controversy leaves a large gap in the understanding of the evolution of water-related processes. Here, we examine the global moisture trends using satellite soil moisture for the past 35 years (1979-2013). Our r...

Uncertainty in climate science and climate policy

This essay, written by a statistician and a climate scientist, describes our view of the gap that exists between current practice in mainstream climate science, and the practical needs of policymakers charged with exploring possible interventions in the context of climate change. By ‘mainstream’ we mean the type of climate science that dominates in universities and research centres, which we wi...

Competitive advantage of Rumex obtusifolius L. might increase in intensively managed temperate grasslands under drier climate

Impact of a drier Early–Mid-Holocene climate upon Amazonian forests

This paper uses a palaeoecological approach to examine the impact of drier climatic conditions of the Early-Mid-Holocene (ca 8000-4000 years ago) upon Amazonia's forests and their fire regimes. Palaeovegetation (pollen data) and palaeofire (charcoal) records are synthesized from 20 sites within the present tropical forest biome, and the underlying causes of any emergent patterns or changes are ...

The Response of Precipitation Minus Evapotranspiration to Climate Warming: Why the “Wet-Get-Wetter, Dry-Get- Drier” Scaling Does Not Hold over Land

Simulations with climate models show a land–ocean contrast in the response of P2 E (precipitation minus evaporation or evapotranspiration) to global warming, with larger changes over ocean than over land. The changes over ocean broadly follow a simple thermodynamic scaling of the atmospheric moisture convergence: the so-called ‘‘wet-get-wetter, dry-get-drier’’ mechanism. Over land, however, the...