The Science of Doom

In #11 we looked at “droughts from rainfall”, i.e., rainfall deficits. There were regional variations but no obvious global trend.

In fact, we expect more rainfall as the earth warms (warm air holds more moisture) so a question to return to in a later article is why there hasn’t been an obvious increase in rainfall, i.e., why there hasn’t been a reduction in “droughts from rainfalls”.

We can measure rainfall. Think – a little bucket that fills up with rain and someone comes around every day, takes a measurement, and writes that number down in a notebook. Of course, the measurement is often more sophisticated in recent times. But we can all appreciate it’s a measurement that can easily be taken.

The other side of soil moisture is evaporation. If it’s hotter, all other things being equal, we expect more evaporation and so on the margins, more places in droughts.

The probem? There is no simple instrument we can stick in the ground next to the rainfall bucket to measure evaporation.

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