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Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is claimed to intensify hydrological processes. Data analysis indicates it does not.
A paradigm has emerged in recent decades that says there has been and/or will be a worsening of hydrological extremes as a consequence of global warming.
Simplified, the paradigm says that wet gets wetter (flooding) and dry gets drier (drought).
But new global data analyses suggest (a) no trends in drought in the last 120 years (Shi et al., 2022), and (b) declining flood magnitudes as the climate warms (He et al., 2022).
With regard to drought, the global trends indicate there has actually been a de-intensification of meteorological (climate-related) drought from 1959-2014 relative to to 1902-1959.
“The results revealed that: 1) meteorological drought in most climate regions intensified during 1902–1958 but showed a wetting trend during 1959–2014.”
Image Source: Shi et al., 2022
And, likewise, flood magnitudes have not just been flat, but they have been declining as the climate has warmed.
“We find most of the world shows decreases in flood volumes with increasing temperature.”
“[O]bservational records often present more evidence for a decrease in annual flood maxima.”
