{"id":122287,"date":"2022-01-21T17:03:12","date_gmt":"2022-01-22T00:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=122287"},"modified":"2022-01-21T17:03:12","modified_gmt":"2022-01-22T00:03:12","slug":"when-it-rains-more-theres-less-economic-growth-bad-news-theres-more-rain-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2022\/01\/21\/when-it-rains-more-theres-less-economic-growth-bad-news-theres-more-rain-now\/","title":{"rendered":"When it rains more, there\u2019s less economic growth (Bad news: There\u2019s more rain now)"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY\u00a0TALIB VISRAM<\/a> <\/span>Courtesy Fast Company<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Our current climate brings plenty of disastrous examples of extreme rainfall. Floods have caused death and displacement around the world<\/a>, from Sri Lanka to Colombia. In Canada, British Columbia\u2019s<\/a> unprecedented heavy rains caused mud- and rockslides, putting the province into a state of emergency and displacing 18,000 residents. Germany experienced its worst flooding in 200 years, which killed more than 150 people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scientists later found the German floods<\/a> were up to nine times more likely due to climate change. The heating of the globe\u2014caused by the burning of fossil fuels\u2014intensifies rainfall. Most industries, like agriculture, benefit from more annual precipitation. But a new study<\/a> has found that as the number of rainy days increases\u2014both in the form of extreme rain and gentle drizzles\u2014economic growth slows. And it found that the impact was more pronounced in wealthier countries. Those effects will likely continue to worsen until the world reaches net-zero emissions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The biggest problem of climate change will be, and already is, the increase and intensification of weather extremes,\u201d says Anders Levermann, professor of dynamics of the climate system at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. And rainfall is a huge part of this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The globe\u2019s temperature has risen about 1 degree Celsius (roughly 2 degrees Fahrenheit) since 1880<\/a>, but it\u2019s been rising at double the previous rate<\/a> since about 1981. And with each degree it climbs, precipitation increases by about 7%<\/a>. That\u2019s because a warmer atmosphere can simply hold more water vapor. Separately, more evaporation from the ocean occurs when it\u2019s warmer, and that water must eventually return to the earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Levermann is one of the authors of the study, which examines economic output data from 1,554 regions across 70 countries from the 40-year span of 1979 to 2019. First they looked at annual mean precipitation, finding that an increase had a positive effect on economic growth rates. That seems to make sense because farming needs more water throughout the year, as do other industries. This is consistent with the interpretation of net water supply as an economic good,\u201d the study reads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, when researchers looked at daily rather than annual rainfall, the results differed. First, as the extreme daily rainfall\u2014when precipitation is dangerously high\u2014increased, economic growth rates were negatively impacted. Again, that makes sense: Extreme rainfall can cause floods, such as those seen around the world last year, which slow the economy. Levermann clarifies that the study didn\u2019t assess the short shocks of flood destruction, which are also harmful, rather the effect on economic output. It\u2019s the perturbation of the normal flow of things,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What makes the finding even clearer is that economic growth also slowed with an increase in the number of wet days,\u201d defined as any day with more than 1 millimeter of rain. That\u2019s really little rainfall,\u201d Levermann says. It\u2019s hardly measurable.\u201d Still, that light rain resulted in strong reductions in growth rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s quite natural that extreme rainfall events will perturb our daily life,\u201d Levermann says. But what I think is surprising is that if we have more rainy days, that normal drizzle will harm our economy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study also examined individual sectors, finding that even the services and manufacturing industries slowed due to more days with light rain. Increased rain may cause transport delays, for instance, leading to postponements in package deliveries, or in employees not being able to get to work on time. While those effects may seem trivial, Levermann notes that We\u2019re talking about percentages here, which are relevant because that\u2019s what we rely on. We think it\u2019s a bad year if we have 1% less economic growth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps surprisingly, researchers also found the increase in rainy days affected richer economies more. We may tend to think they\u2019re more resilient, but perhaps because systems are so automated and efficient, they leave little room for adaptation to small grains in the machinery,\u201d Levermann says, adding, We are confident in the rich countries that nature cannot really disturb us. And that\u2019s not true.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY\u00a0TALIB VISRAM Courtesy Fast Company Our current climate brings plenty of disastrous examples of extreme rainfall. Floods have caused death and displacement around the world, from Sri Lanka to Colombia. In Canada, British Columbia\u2019s unprecedented heavy rains caused mud- and rockslides, putting the province into a state of emergency and displacing 18,000 residents. Germany experienced its worst flooding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-122287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}