The nights are warming much faster than the days. A new study has revealed that night time warming was more common than daytime warming worldwide, which means nights are heating up faster than the days.
The findings by University of Exeter scientists are considered to be the first world wide assessment on how heating affects nights and days. The researchers note that the study had much consequence on wild life and their adaption to the changes.
The researchers studied the changes in warming for 35 years from 1983 to 2017. In the study, they found that global warming was only increasing and an important aspect that they came across was that there was a difference of at least 0.25C between day and night rises.
The researchers found that warming varied from one place to another – when nights warmed more quickly in some localities, days warmed much faster in some other regions. However, the night time warming was greater in more areas than day time warming, the study said. They found that nights warmed faster than the days in Europe, West Africa, Western South America and Central Asia. They found that day warming was much greater in some places in southern US, Mexico and Middle East.
The researchers said that the change in global heating was because of the changes in cloud patterns. They said that sun light is blocked where cloud cover increases. And the cloud retains retain more heat and humidity at night like a blanket, they said and stated that this makes the nights more hot.
They noted that when regions have thinner clouds, the days could be hotter as more sunlight falls on the dry lands.
Lead author Daniel Cox (Environment and Sustainability Institute at Exeter’s Penryn Campus in Cornwall) said that greater night time warming was associated with climate becoming wetter. This has demonstrated to have its impact on plant growth and how the species, such as insects and mammals interact.
They also looked at vegetation growth and found that it was reduced where nights were getting hotter faster than days. They also found that plant growth got affected in regions where days warmed more, as there were fewer clouds and less rainfall.
The study says that night time warming was more prevalent in wetter regions. Here teh cloud covering reduced photosynthesis and drove a negative correlation between precipitation and vegetation growth.
