As spring finally arrives in typical Maryland style – downpours – people take comfort in these wet days by dreaming of the blooms that the rain nurtures. However, a new study by an Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center researcher published in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment shows that whether rainfall comes as drizzle events or downpours matters for plant growth.
Scientists have predicted that droughts and floods will become more frequent and severe as our planet warms and climate changes, but detecting this on regional and continental scales has proven difficult. Now a new UMD and NASA study confirms that major droughts and pluvials – periods of excessive precipitation and water storage on land – have indeed been occurring more often.
UMD-led study maps the forests of the American Midwest to monitor carbon storage over millennia
He will hold a joint appointment in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science and the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center.
Daile Zhang serves on the World Meteorological Organization’s Committee on Weather and Climate Extremes.
An international team led by researchers at the University of Maryland and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has created the most high-resolution maps to date showing changes in the pH of seawater since the Industrial Revolution began. Their study, published in the December 9, 2019 issue of the journal Nature Scientific Reports, suggests that the ocean’s capacity to continue absorbing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere is diminishing.
