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Full Version: How climate change is leading to bigger hailstones + Suprisingly stable carbon intake
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Scientists find surprisingly stable carbon uptake by land and oceans From air
https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2022/0...nd-oceans/

INTRO: A new study indicates that the natural uptake of atmospheric carbon dioxide by land and oceans has in the recent past been more efficient than previously thought. Researchers came to the conclusion by drawing up a new time series for global carbon emissions from deforestation—up to now a missing link in understanding the global carbon cycle.

The study shows that carbon emissions from deforestation between the 1960s and 1980s were lower than previous studies had assumed. By combining the time series with other datasets, it indicates that the uptake of carbon dioxide by nature has so far been influenced less by climate change than has been thought. The study was published today in the scientific journal Nature... (MORE - dtails)


How climate change is leading to bigger hailstones
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220...tones-grow

EXCERPTS: While giant hailstones – classed as those with a diameter greater than 10cm (3.9in) – are extremely rare, they are an indicator [of climate change] and hail damage in the US now averages more than $10bn (£7.6bn) a year. But why might global warming be causing an increase in the amount of ice falling from the sky? And are their limits to just how big a hailstone can grow?

[...] Destructive storms that produce hailstones more than 25mm (1in) in diameter require a specific set of conditions, says Julian Brimelow, a physical sciences specialist at Environment and Climate Change Canada, a department of the Canadian government, who has studied how climate change affects hail formation. They require enough moisture, powerful updraughts, and a "trigger factor", typically a weather front. This is why serious hailstorms are usually confined to particular regions such as the Great Plains in the US and Australia’s Gold Coast. Typically such regions have cool, dry air in the upper atmosphere above warm, humid surface air. This unstable situation leads to strong updraughts and the formation of thunderstorms.

Such locations are particularly prone to a type of thunderstorm known as supercells, which can produce very large hail due to the powerful rotating updraughts they create.

But as climate change alters the temperature of the Earth's atmosphere, so too is the amount of moisture in the air. Warmer air can hold more water vapour while higher temperatures also mean more water is evaporated from the Earth's surface. This is predicted to lead to heavier rainfall and more extreme storms in parts of the world.

"As the planet continues to warm, areas where hailstorms are favoured are likely to shift," says Brimelow. "An area now where sufficient moisture is a limiting factor may become more moist and consequently, hailstorm frequency may increase."

A combination of observations of changes already taking place and climate modelling has led researchers to conclude that hailstorms will become more frequent in Australia and Europe, but there will be a decrease in East Asia and North America. But they also found that hailstorms will become generally more intense.

And while hailstorms might become less frequent in North America, hailstones when they fall are also likely to get larger, according to a separate study by Brimelow and his colleagues that looked at how hail conditions in North America might change in a warmer world... (MORE - missing details)