{"id":374792,"date":"2025-04-11T16:58:59","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T14:58:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=374792"},"modified":"2025-04-11T16:59:01","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T14:59:01","slug":"false-axios-atlantas-rainfall-increase-isnt-attributable-to-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=374792","title":{"rendered":"False, Axios, Atlanta\u2019s Rainfall Increase Isn\u2019t Attributable to Climate Change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From ClimateRealism<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Anthony Watts<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In its April 7, 2025, article titled\u00a0Heavier rain is becoming more common in Atlanta<\/em><\/a>, Axios Atlanta claims that \u201cclimate change is causing heavier downpours in Atlanta\u201d citing data supplied by Climate Central (CC). This attribution is false. Evidence shows that localized urban factors\u2014not global CO\u2082 levels\u2014are responsible for the modest increases in rainfall intensity in cities like Atlanta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In their Axios article, writers Kristal Dixon and Alex Fitzpatrick parrot flawed conclusions previously debunked in a March 2025 analysis from Climate Realism,<\/em> titled Climate Central\u2019s Misleading Urban Rainfall Claims Are All Wet<\/em><\/a>. Good reporters would have examined the evidence independently, rather than simply uncritically echoing CC\u2019s claims. As shown in that post, CC failed to examine long-term historical context and rested their claims on cherry-picked data for the trends they identify. When a more comprehensive data set is examined, such as that compiled at Climate at a Glance<\/a>, national U.S. precipitation patterns do not support the idea of a climate-driven rainfall crisis. The U.S. Precipitation<\/a> page makes clear: while some regional variability exists, no alarming or unprecedented surge in rainfall frequency or intensity is attributable to climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most glaring flaw that Axios inherits from CC is the complete omission of the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect<\/a>\u2014a basic and long-documented phenomenon in which urban areas retain more heat than surrounding rural regions due to asphalt, concrete, and reduced vegetation. This localized warming creates increased upward convection providing the potential for increased storms in particular locations. Cities like Atlanta are textbook examples of UHI impact as seen in the side-by-side images below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

These paired satellite images, taken in 2000, illustrate the UHI in Atlanta, Georgia. The image on the left is essentially a photo, in which green areas are covered by vegetation, grey areas by built surfaces (pavement and buildings) and brownish areas by bare soil. The image on the right shows land surface temperatures (with a scale). You can see that urban development increases surface temperatures. Source:\u00a0<\/em>NASA Earth Observatory<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attributing localized effects to supposed human caused global climate change, while ignoring the critical role urbanization plays seems less of an oversight and more like deliberate misdirection in support of the \u201cclimate change causes everything bad\u201d narrative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Urban areas don\u2019t just heat up differently\u2014they also pollute differently. Cities like Atlanta produce higher levels of particulate matter from vehicles, industrial activity, and heating systems. These particles serve as condensation nuclei<\/a>, which facilitate cloud formation and rainfall. A 2004 study published in Nature<\/em>, \u201cEnhanced precipitation due to aerosol effects\u201d<\/a>, documents this effect, showing how increased aerosols intensify rainfall in heavily polluted areas. These findings have been corroborated in urban studies published by the American Meteorological Society, such as \u201cUrban Influences on Cloud and Precipitation\u201d<\/a>, which demonstrate how cities create their own microclimates capable of amplifying rainfall\u2014entirely independent of CO\u2082-driven global climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rainfall trend that CC and Axios are attributing to \u201cclimate change\u201d is more accurately explained by localized human impacts \u2014 not emissions from a coal plant in China or a car in Kansas, but heat-retaining surfaces and pollution within the very cities under discussion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s disappointing, but sadly unsurprising, to see Axios uncritically report CC\u2019s dubious climate change attribution for Atlanta\u2019s recent rainfall trends as if it were a proven fact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Climate Central continues to push a simplistic narrative that ignores fundamental atmospheric physics, misuses regional data, and omits well-established meteorological processes like UHI and aerosol-induced rainfall. Until outlets like Axios start exercising at least a minimal amount of journalistic investigative curiosity, and scrutinize claims made by climate activists that humans are causing changes to the weather, they\u2019re complicit in spreading misinformation, misleading the public concerning the causes and consequences of climate change. This isn\u2019t science, it is narrative engineering in service to a socio-political agenda.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In its April 7, 2025, article titled\u00a0Heavier rain is becoming more common in Atlanta, Axios Atlanta claims that \u201cclimate change is causing heavier downpours in Atlanta\u201d citing data supplied by Climate Central (CC). This attribution is false. Evidence shows that localized urban factors\u2014not global CO\u2082 levels\u2014are responsible for the modest increases in rainfall intensity in cities like Atlanta.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":374798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691834404,691833771,691834120,691818056,691821156],"class_list":{"0":"post-374792","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-atlanta","9":"tag-axios-atlanta","10":"tag-climate-central-cc","11":"tag-climate-change","12":"tag-urban-heat-island-uhi","14":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/06WKU5XPXEVAYDPXLMWST2TKIYM.jpg?fit=2048%2C1536&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1zv2","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":369606,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=369606","url_meta":{"origin":374792,"position":0},"title":"No, Axios, Climate Change Is Not Making Atlanta\u2019s Allergy Season Worse","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"12\/03\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Axios Atlanta recently published an article titled\u00a0\u201cPollen season in Atlanta is getting worse, thanks to climate change,\u201d\u00a0claiming that rising temperatures caused by climate change are making allergy season more severe. 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