On April 7, 2025, the title is Heavier rains are becoming more common in AtlantaAxios Atlanta claims that “climate change is causing downpours in Atlanta” and quotes data provided by Climate Central (CC). [emphasis, links added]
This attribution is wrong.
There is evidence that localized urban factors (rather than global carbon dioxide levels) are modest increases in rainfall intensity in cities such as Atlanta.
In its Axios articles, writers Kristal Dixon and Alex Fitzpatrick Climate Realism Title Misleading urban rainfall requirements in climate centers are wet.
Good journalists would have studied the evidence independently rather than simply echoing CC's claims.
As shown in the post, CC failed to examine the long-term historical context and placed its claims on cherry-picked data to understand the trends they found.
When examining a more comprehensive dataset, such as those pooled in climates, the U.S. national precipitation pattern does not support the idea of a climate-driven rainfall crisis.
The U.S. Precipitation Page makes it clear: Despite some regional variability, there is no shocking or unprecedented surge in rainfall frequency or intensity due to climate change.
The most obvious flaw in the inheritance of Axios from CC is the complete omission of the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect, a basic and long-term documented phenomenon in which urban areas retain more heat than surrounding rural areas due to reduced asphalt, concrete, concrete and vegetation.
This local warming increases upward convection, thereby increasing the potential of the storm in a specific location. Cities like Atlanta are textbook examples of UHI impacts, as shown in the following image.
Attributing local effects to so-called man-caused global climate change, while ignoring the key role of urbanization seems less like a kind of supervision, but more like intentional misleading in support of the narrative that “climate change causes everything bad”.
Not only will urban areas vary, but pollution will also vary.
Cities such as Atlanta produce higher levels of particulate matter from vehicles, industrial activities and heating systems. These particles are condensation nuclei, which helps cloud formation and rainfall.
A study published in 2004 nature“Intensification of precipitation due to aerosol effect”, recorded this effect and showed how Increased aerosols have exacerbated rainfall in severely polluted areas.
These findings are confirmed in urban studies published by the American Meteorological Society, such as “The Effects of Cities on Clouds and Precipitation,” which show how cities create microclimates that can amplify rainfall – not related to CO2-driven global climate change.
The rainfall trends attributed to “climate change” explain more accurately the human impact — not emissions from coal-fired power plants in China or Kansas cars, but the surface and pollution of heating in the city in the discussion.
Disappointingly, it is no surprise to see Axios innocently reporting the suspicious climate change attribution of Atlanta's recent rainfall trends, as if that was a fact.
The Climate Center continues to promote a simple narrative that ignores basic atmospheric physics, abuses regional data, and ignores recognized meteorological processes such as UHI and aerosol-induced rainfall.
Until media such as Axios began to exercise at least the curiosity of news investigations and carefully examined climate activists’ claims that humans are causing weather changes, they are complicit in spreading misinformation and misleading the public about the causes and consequences of climate change.
This is not science, but a narrative project serving the socio-political agenda.
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