Publication: Scientific American

UCLA Expert: Daniel Swain: Assistant Researcher and Climate Specialist, Institute of the Environment and Sustainability

Synopsis: Devastating floods and other climate disasters are driving the spread of disease. Whether or not the increased volume of water is boosting the frequency and power of floods depends on where the rain occurs.

UCLA News: “It’s not just the extremity of precipitation that matters. It is also a function of the land surface in a bunch of different ways,” Swain explained. “The old aphorism that ‘when it rains, it pours’ is literally true in this context. It actually encapsulates a lot of the complexity that’s here.” This is something he calls “the extremeness threshold”: Flooding is not increasing everywhere. But in places in the world where atmospheric and surface conditions are just right, extreme weather events are causing more frequent and more powerful floods. And that means the global health consequences will be unevenly distributed as well.

Read more at Scientific American.