El Niño And Severe Drought Connections: Researchers Link The Two Together

Researchers discovered that global climate change is causing increasing amounts of droughts along with significant increases in plant growth, according to a recent study at the University of Montana.

The researchers found that over the last 32 years there had been widespread increases in plant growth and evaporation due to global climate change activities. The blunt of El Niño's effects are due to increasing evapotranspiration, a process where water is transferred from the land to the atmosphere by evaporation from plants and soil. This increases the potential for future drought along with rising temperatures, which is connected to strong El Niño events, according to the researchers.

In their study, the researchers investigated global evapotranspiration trends between 1982 and 2013, where they examined green vegetation, weather and temperature, precipitation and cloudiness. They found that there were significant amounts of plant growth reduction and evaporation due to recent climate change.

The researchers concluded that if the trends continue, mostly likely there will be extreme regional droughts tied to strong El Niño events.

This study was published in Nature Magazine.

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