Last week, Nature published a study that caused quite a stir among the denier press, with write-ups in the Daily Mail, Australian, Washington Times and others claiming that models are wrong on how the world’s water cycle will respond to our changing climate. The authors argue that current models are using an incorrect baseline of past precipitation, and as a result, are overestimating how much rain and drought climate change will cause. But there’s been a flood of experts pushing back, largely because the study depends on hundred-year timescales and glosses over the extreme rain or drought events that occur on shorter-than-centenial timescales.
Joe Romm has a comprehensive post on how the study is “deeply flawed,” and “sad for science,” according to Dr. Kevin Trenberth. The post details some of the failings of the study, and refers to a number of other studies that debunk this one, including one cited by the authors. Carbon Brief also has a fact-checking post with a number of quotes from other scientists, who explain that the study's reliance on paleoclimate proxies likely caused it to miss the short-term fluctuations of drought and deluge.
Ironically, deniers usually say that paleoclimate proxies, like ice cores and tree rings, are meaningless when included in research by someone who comes to conclusions they don’t like. Dr. Michael Mann—no stranger to denier anger over these proxies—posted a response saying that based on his paleo expertise, it’s likely that these proxies underestimate changes to the water cycle, leading the authors to the erroneous conclusion that models overestimate them.
Judging by all the pushback, it’s clear that this precipitation study doesn’t mean that climate models should be left out to dry.
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