© NOAA Photo Library, NOAA Central Library; OAR/ERL/National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL)A climate study has found increasing fluctuations between cloudy days and sunny ones, and between dry days and downpours. Above, an example of one extreme.
The world isn't just warming, in parts of the planet the weather is becoming more erratic, new research indicates.
By looking at measurements of sunlight striking the planet's surface as well as precipitation records, a study has found that in certain places, daily weather is increasingly flip-flopping between sunny and cloudy, and downpours and dry days. It's not yet clear why this is happening.
This is the first global climate study to examine variation in day-to-day weather. So far, climate science has focused on extremes - record temperatures or intense storms, for example - or on averages, such as estimates that global temperatures have risen 0.7 degrees Celsius (1.3 degrees Fahrenheit) since the Industrial Revolution.
"I think it turns out day-to-day variability is actually important and perhaps more attention should be paid to it," said David Medvigy, the lead researcher and an assistant professor in the department of geosciences at Princeton University.
This is because increases in weather fluctuations have important implications, particularly for plants - which currently pull about 25 percent of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide emitted by humans out of the air.
