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Number Of Days Without Rain Will Increase By At Least 30 Days By End of 21st Century

By Kamal Nayan | Update Date: Mar 16, 2014 12:24 AM EDT

Some parts of the world should expect as many as 30 more days a year without precipitation, according to researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego. 

Human activities are largely responsible for the ongoing climate changes altering the nature of how rains and snow falls. 

The team projected the future conditions through computer models and came to conclusions that regions such as the Amazon, Central America, Indonesia and all Mediterranean climate regions around the world will likely see the greatest increase in the number of "dry days" per year. 

"We expect to see more intense extreme rainfall events likely because of climate change, which will amount to little change in annual rainfall," said Scripps meteorologist Alexander Gershunov, according to KPBS.

Researchers noted that California, with its Mediterranean climate is more likely to have five to ten more dry days per year.

"Changes in intensity of precipitation events and duration of intervals between those events will have direct effects on vegetation and soil moisture," said Stephen Jackson, director of the U.S. Department of the Interior Southwest Climate Science Center, which co-funded the study, according to KPBS.

"Looking at changes in the number of dry days per year is a new way of understanding how climate change will affect us that goes beyond just annual or seasonal mean precipitation changes, and allows us to better adapt to and mitigate the impacts of local hydrological changes," added Suraj Polade, a postdoctoral researcher who worked with Scripps climate scientists.

The study has been published in Scientific Reports, the open-access journal from Nature Publishing Group.

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