The microphysical structure of cloud droplets affects behavior like precipitation. Current models may be underestimating how much these structures can vary within a single cloud.
precipitation
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Marine Heatwaves Reshape Precipitation Patterns
Most marine heatwaves experience reduced precipitation throughout their lifetime, but warmer events in the early stage can trigger increased precipitation after reaching peak intensity, causing faster decay.
Posted inNews
California’s Getting an Earlier Start to Wildfire Season
Human-caused climate change has pushed the onset of fire season in the state to as much as 46 days earlier than it was 30 years ago.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Why Crop Yield Decreases at High Temperatures
Scientists find that water stress drives the connection between surface temperature and crop yield loss, providing information to help improve predictions of agricultural productivity under climate change.
Posted inNews
New Research Shows More Extreme Global Warming Impacts Looming for the Northeast
One new study identifies a 17% increase in the destructive potential of the strongest nor’easters, while another bolsters links between Arctic ice melt and dangerous blizzards.
Posted inNews
Years-Old Groundwater Dominates Spring Mountain Streams
Alpine rain and snow take much longer to percolate into western U.S. streams than previously thought, adding complexity to long-standing hydrologic models.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Simplicity May Be the Key to Understanding Soil Moisture
A pared-down model that considers only precipitation and net surface radiation seems to solve long-standing problems.
Posted inEditors' Vox
Erosion: An Overlooked Contributor to the Carbon Cycle
Since physical and chemical erosion yield comparable carbon fluxes, studying both together is essential to avoid biases in erosion-driven carbon flux estimates.
Posted inScience Updates
Confronting Debris Flow Hazards After Wildfire
Scientists and practitioners have identified research priorities to improve scientific understanding of postfire debris flows and meet decisionmaking challenges posed by this growing hazard.