Generally, global rainfall has been increasing for over 100 years. From epa.gov:
> Since 1901, global precipitation has increased at an average rate of 0.04 inches per decade, while precipitation in the contiguous 48 states has increased at a rate of 0.20 inches per decade.
Broadly speaking, most climate change theories would suggest a wetter world, not a dryer one. Of course locally conditions might be very very different. The southwestern USA is trending dryer. The northeastern USA is trending wetter.
Similarly (last I looked and I haven't looked much at European trends), precipitation is expected to increase in northern Europe and decline in southern Europe.
> Broadly speaking, most climate change theories would suggest a wetter world, not a dryer one. Of course locally conditions might be very very different. The southwestern USA is trending dryer. The northeastern USA is trending wetter.
Trend or not, the northeastern USA is also experiencing a drought currently. But the last couple of summers have been fairly cool and wet. Maybe we just got unlucky with this one (weather), or maybe pinballing between drought and wet is the new normal (climate) and agriculture here needs to adapt to that.
Yes I'm in New Hampshire in that very unfun drought right now. But droughts like this were the norm. Now they're more rare.
On drought.gov if you scroll below the map and click 1895 - Present in the graph at the bottom of the page, you'll see just how common droughts in NH used to be compared to the much high "abnormally wet" conditions of today.
Also this: The recent eruption in Tonga has apparently had unusual effects on water in the atmosphere. Has this affected the situation in Europe? I'd love to know. Japan also skipped a monsoon season this year.
