Rainy days harm the economy

Date:
January 12, 2022
Source:
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)
Summary:
Economic growth goes down when the number of wet days and days
with extreme rainfall go up, a team of scientists finds. The data
analysis of more than 1,500 regions over the past 40 years shows
a clear connection and suggests that intensified daily rainfall
driven by climate-change from burning oil and coal will harm the
global economy.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Economic growth goes down when the number of wet days and days with
extreme rainfall go up, a team of Potsdam scientists finds. Rich
countries are most severely affected and herein the manufacturing and
service sectors, according to their study now published as cover story
in the journal Nature. The data analysis of more than 1,500 regions over
the past 40 years shows a clear connection and suggests that intensified
daily rainfall driven by climate- change from burning oil and coal will
harm the global economy.


========================================================================== "This is about prosperity, and ultimately about people's jobs. Economies
across the world are slowed down by more wet days and extreme daily
rainfall -- an important insight that adds to our growing understanding
of the true costs of climate change," says Leonie Wenz from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the Mercator Research
Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC) who led the study.

"Macro-economic assessments of climate impacts have so far focused
mostly on temperature and considered -- if at all -- changes in rainfall
only across longer time scales such as years or months, thus missing
the complete picture," explains Wenz. "While more annual rainfall is
generally good for economies, especially agriculturally dependent ones,
the question is also how the rain is distributed across the days of
the year. Intensified daily rainfall turns out to be bad, especially
for wealthy, industrialized countries like the US, Japan, or Germany."
A first-of-its-kind global analysis of subnational rainfall effects "We identify a number of distinct effects on economic production, yet the
most important one really is from extreme daily rainfall," says Maximilian Kotz, first author of the study and also at the Potsdam Institute. "This
is because rainfall extremes are where we can already see the influence
of climate change most clearly, and because they are intensifying almost everywhere across the world." The analysis statistically evaluates
data of sub-national economic output for 1554 regions worldwide in
the period 1979-2019, collected and made publicly available by MCC and
PIK. The scientists combine these with high resolution rainfall data. The combination of ever increasing detail in climatic and economic data is of particular importance in the context of rain, a highly local phenomenon,
and revealed the new insights.

"It's the daily rainfall that poses the threat" By loading the Earth's atmosphere with greenhouse gases from fossil power plants and cars,
humanity is heating the planet. Warming air can hold more water vapour
that eventually becomes rain. Although atmospheric dynamics make regional changes in annual averages more complicated, daily rainfall extremes
are increasing globally due to this water vapour effect.

"Our study reveals that it's precisely the fingerprint of global warming
in daily rainfall which have hefty economic effects that have not yet been accounted for but are highly relevant," says co-author Anders Levermann,
Head of the Potsdam Institute's Complexity Science domain, professor
at Potsdam University and researcher at Columbia University's Lamont
Doherty Earth Observatory, New York. "Taking a closer look at short time
scales instead of annual averages helps to understand what is going on:
it's the daily rainfall which poses the threat. It's rather the climate
shocks from weather extremes that threaten our way of life than the
gradual changes. By destabilizing our climate we harm our economies. We
have to make sure that our burning of fossil fuels does not de special promotion Explore the latest scientific research on sleep and dreams
in this free online course from New Scientist -- Sign_up_now_>>> academy.newscientist.com/courses/science-of-sleep-and-dreams ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Potsdam_Institute_for_Climate_Impact_Research_(PIK).

Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Maximilian Kotz, Anders Levermann, Leonie Wenz. The effect of
rainfall
changes on economic production. Nature, 2022; 601 (7892): 223 DOI:
10.1038/s41586-021-04283-8 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/01/220112121503.htm
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