[Reading Science Through Covers] Nature study links climate change to larger hailstones worldwide

This week, the cover of the international journal ‘Nature’ features a photograph of hailstones that have fallen to the ground. A new study reports that climate change is making hailstones larger. 

A research team led by Professor Qinghong Zhang in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at Peking University in China analyzed the issue with a focus on ‘hail size’ to investigate how climate change affects hail damage worldwide, and published their findings in Nature on the 27th. 

According to the team, global damage caused by hail over the past two years has amounted to several billion dollars. They projected that, due to climate change, the scale of hail-related losses will increase further in the future. 

The researchers used Earth system models that predict and simulate climate change to determine its impact on hail. They cross-validated their simulation results by comparing multiple models. 

By comprehensively examining rising air temperatures, increased atmospheric instability, greater water vapor content, hail growth within the atmosphere, and the degree of hail melting during its fall, they calculated the size of hailstones reaching the ground. The results confirmed a ‘size polarization’ trend in which small hailstones with diameters under 30 mm are decreasing, while large hailstones 30 mm and above are increasing. 

The team concluded that warmer air strengthens updrafts, allowing hailstones to remain aloft longer and grow more, which leads to larger hailstones overall. 

The researchers explained that the problem with climate change is less about increasing the frequency of hail events and more about increasing hail size. Large hailstones cause severe economic damage to cars, buildings, crops, and solar panels. 

The team stated, “By the late 21st century, the global potential for hail damage is expected to increase by about 40% compared to the present.” 

This study is significant in that it quantitatively demonstrates that hail, along with floods, heat waves, and typhoons, will be a key factor shaping future climate risk.