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IMAGE: Despite being located in one of the driest regions of the world--the Atacama Desert in Northern Chile--the usually dry Copiapó River has flooded several times during the 19th and 20th...
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Credit: Manu Abad via Imaggeo
MUNICH -- Around the world each year, extreme precipitation events cause catastrophic flooding that results in tragic loss of life and costly damage to infrastructure and property. However, a variety of different weather systems can cause these extreme events, so a detailed understanding of the atmospheric processes that lead to their formation is crucial.
Now, for the first time, a global analysis reveals that two intertwined atmospheric processes drive the formation of many large-scale extreme precipitation events around the world, particularly in dry subtropical regions where they can inflict catastrophic flooding, as occurred in March 2015 in the Atacama Desert.