NOAAAtmospheric rivers, now detectable by satellite, flow from the tropics to the polesNOAA
Evaporation over tropical oceans forms invisible rivers that flow to the earth’s poles through the atmosphere. As they travel along their path, they are responsible for much of the rain that falls around the planet. They are the source of up to 30% of annual precipitation in Europe and the US, and up to 40% of rainfall in East Asia during the rainy season. Chinese electrical engineer Weiming Ma of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in the US state of Washington has now developed a method to track them, as he and colleagues described in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres. The group showed that satellite records of space temperature patterns can be used to create a three-dimensional map of winds that, when combined with humidity data from NASA, indicates the global layout of atmospheric rivers. The tool can be used to assess how the greater volumes of water that evaporate as a result of global warming affect the intensity of rainfall worldwide—more than its frequency—and contribute to ice loss at the planet’s poles (Science Alert, February 26).
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