In the aftermath of the latest bout of extreme rainfall across New Zealand’s upper North Island, there were some familar scenes.

Submerged pastures. Silt carried by swollen rivers and piled against bridges. Floodwaters surrounding homes whose owners were forced to flee.

As we count the toll of these events, which have wrought billions of dollars in damage over the past few years alone, there are inevitably questions about the hidden hand of climate change.

But just as pressing is another question: just how much worse might they become in a potentially much warmer world, decades from now?

Our newly published research, exploring a range of warming scenarios and drawing on the Ministry for the Environment’s latest climate projections, provides some useful answers.

The results point to a future where extreme rainfall is both more intense and more frequent across much of the country – with some simulated storms bearing the hallmarks of weather disasters from Aotearoa’s past.

Why and where future storms get wetter

It has long been understood that, as global temperatures rise, the atmosphere can hold more water vapour, increasing the........

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