Large variations in precipitation over the past millennium
According to a new study in Nature, the Northern Hemisphere has experienced considerably larger variations in precipitation during the past twelve centuries than in the twentieth century. Researchers from Sweden, Germany, and Switzerland have found that climate models overestimated the increase in wet and dry extremes as temperatures increased during the twentieth century. The new results will enable us to improve the accuracy of climate models and to better predict future precipitation changes.
Variations in decadal to centennial-scale drought and pluvial episodes - across the Northern Hemisphere - have been reliably reconstructed back to the ninth century for the first time.
"Now we can compare precipitation changes in various parts of Europe, Asia, and North America for the past twelve centuries. Precipitation anomalies have been stronger and covered larger areas in some earlier centuries than during the twentieth century", according to Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist, historian and climate researcher at Stockholm University and lead author of this study.
http://phys.org/news/2016-04-large-variations-precipitation-millennium.html
