Warming climate is transforming major snowfall into extreme rain over mountains

The study looked at only the heaviest rains each year over six decades in the Northern Hemisphere, finding that as altitude rose, so did the turbocharging of rain

File Picture: Alamy/PA

A warming world is transforming some major snowfalls into extreme rain over mountains, worsening dangerous flooding like the type that devastated Pakistan last year as well as long-term water shortages, a study has found.

Using rain and snow measurements since 1950 and computer simulations for future climate, scientists calculated that for every degree Celsius the world warms, extreme rainfall at higher elevation increases by 15%, according to a study in the Nature journal.