A team of researchers recently discovered that global climate change is causing general increases in both plant growth and potential drought risk.
University of Montana Professor John Kimball is among the researchers who published a report Oct. 30 detailing widespread increases in both plant growth and evaporation due to recent global climate trends over the past 32 years.
The apparent rise in evapotranspiration – the process by which water is transferred from the land to the atmosphere by evaporation from plants and soil – is increasing potential drought risk with rising temperature trends, especially during periodic drought cycles that have been linked with strong El Nino events, according to the researchers.
El Nino is a disruption of the ocean-atmosphere system in the tropical Pacific with important consequences for weather around the globe.