Romero et al. (2026) How and where has the climate changed?

⚠️ Warning: This summary was generated from the abstract only, as the full text was not available.

Identification

• Journal: Climatic Change
• Year: 2026
• Date: 2026-09-23
• Authors: David Romero, Gerado Martin
• DOI: 10.1007/s10584-026-04303-4

Research Groups

• Climate Change Research Group, University of California, Berkeley
• Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford
• European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF)

Short Summary

This study compares climate normals over two 30-year periods to document changes in temperature, precipitation, and Köppen–Geiger climate classification across the global land surface. The results show significant warming and drying trends with substantial implications for ecosystems, agriculture, and water resources.

Objective

• Investigate changes in climate normals between consecutive 30-year periods

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Global land surface (∼510 million km2)
• Temporal Scale: Two 30-year periods: 1961–1990 and 1991–2020

Methodology and Data

• Models used: ERA5-Land reanalysis data (∼9 km resolution)
• Data sources: High-resolution atmospheric and land surface variables from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF)

Main Results

• Mean land surface temperature increased by 0.731 °C between periods.
• Global mean precipitation decreased by 8.8 mm between the two 30-year normals.
• Köppen–Geiger reclassification occurred across 18.5 × 106 km2, or 12.4% of the global continental land area.

Contributions

• Provides robust and comprehensive global comparisons between consecutive climatological normals.
• Documents significant warming and drying trends with substantial implications for ecosystems, agriculture, and water resources.

Funding

• European Research Council (ERC) under grant agreement No. 725273 (DROUGHT-R&F)
• National Science Foundation (NSF) under award No. AGS-1824446

Citation

@article{Romero2026How,
  author = {Romero, David and Martin, Gerado},
  title = {How and where has the climate changed?},
  journal = {Climatic Change},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.1007/s10584-026-04303-4},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-026-04303-4}
}