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Cities are making it rain more – but not as much as scientists thought

The Conversation · 🇦🇺 public Australia · · 834 words · By Andy Pitman; Jason Evans; Shankar Sharma
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What to know about Cities are making it rain more – but not as much as scientists thought

The article discusses a study published in Environmental Research Letters regarding the accuracy of satellite-based rainfall data over urban areas. It explains that while cities do appear to experience more frequent rain, a portion of this trend is an artifact of increased satellite sampling frequency over time.

Propaganda risk 0%
Claims checked 13
Techniques found 0
Topics 0

Coverage spectrum

Coverage gap: Low Left coverage
Left0%
Center75%
Right25%

4 sources compared across this story cluster. This is an eFinder estimate from indexed source coverage, not an editorial rating.

What happened

After another spell of wet weather along Australia’s east coast, with storms, heavy rain and flash flooding across Sydney and parts of New South Wales, it is natural to ask whether our cities are shaping the rainfall that descends upon them.

Why it matters

This matters because most people now live in cities.

Common ground

If urbanisation changes rainfall, even slightly, the effects can reach large populations through flooding, stormwater design, water supply and infrastructure planning.

Perspective signals

No major persuasion pattern has been attached yet, so the source, headline, and evidence should carry most of the weight for readers.

The article discusses a study published in Environmental Research Letters regarding the accuracy of satellite-based rainfall data over urban areas. It explains that while cities do appear to experience more frequent rain, a portion of this trend is an artifact of increased satellite sampling frequency over time.

open_in_new Read the original article: https://theconversation.com/cities-are-making-it-rain-more-but-not-as-much-as-sc…

analyticsAnalysis

0%
Propaganda Score
confidence: 100%
Low risk. This article shows minimal use of propaganda techniques.

fact_checkClaims Checked

eFinder analyzed this article and checked 13 claims against available evidence, cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia. Here is what the fact-checking layer found.

verified Verified 5
schedule Pending 3
info Single Source 3
check_circle Corroborated 2
verified
Claim 1: “the urban signal mainly came from microwave observations, while infrared estimates showed no urban pattern.”
VERIFIED
A web search result explicitly states: 'When we separated the IMERG data by observation type, the urban signal mainly came from microwave observations, while infrared estimates showed no urban pattern.'
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web search NEUTRAL — Jun 1, 2026 · When we separated the IMERG data by observation type, the urban signal mainly came from microwave observations, while infrared estimates showed ...
https://www.preventionweb.net/news/cities-are-making-it-rain…
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web search NEUTRAL — For PMW sensors, pollutants absorb microwaves and attenuate microwave signals, which can lead to erroneous detection of precipitation signals. As for IR sensors ...
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel7/4609443/10330207/10409294.pd…
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web search NEUTRAL — The current study used rain gauge observations (GOBS) from the VN Meteorological and Hydrological Administration (VMHA) as a reference base for evaluating IMERG ...
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/apme/64/12/JAMC-D…
schedule
Claim 2: “For Sydney, we also compared IMERG with CMORPH, another satellite product, and with Bureau of Meteorology rain gauges.”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
check_circle
Claim 3: “Rain events occurred more often over urban areas than over nearby rural ones.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple sources confirm the finding that rain events occur more frequently over urban areas than rural ones based on the analyzed data.
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web search NEUTRAL — Those results suggest intense rainfall occurred more frequently in the urban region under observed climate change and urbanization in YRD. Introduction. Short- ...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S22120…
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web search NEUTRAL — Oct 6, 2025 · By further dividing the rural areas into upwind and downwind regions, we find that the frequency of light precipitation events is enhanced.
https://essopenarchive.org/doi/pdf/10.22541/essoar.175978303…
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web search NEUTRAL — May 31, 2026 · The data was evaluated between 2001 and 2020 in 1056 cities ... Most Cities Receive More Rainfall Than Surrounding Rural Areas, Global Study Shows.
https://www.facebook.com/ConversationEDU/posts/a-new-study-s…
info
Claim 4: “Changes in microwave sampling explained up to about 20% of the long-term rainfall trends across the 15 cities.”
SINGLE SOURCE
The specific figure of '20% of the long-term rainfall trends' is a detailed finding from the study and is not corroborated by independent external sources in the provided evidence.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Fifteen or 15 may refer to: 15 (number), the natural number following 14 and preceding 16 one of the years 15 BC, AD 15, 1915, 2015
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also inclu…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — "Night Changes" is a song recorded by English-Irish boy band One Direction. It was written by the band alongside Jamie Scott, Julian Bunetta, and John Ryan, while the production was handled by Bunetta…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Changes
verified
Claim 5: “Our new study, published in Environmental Research Letters, asks a related question: how much of this data reflects real changes in rainfall, and how much depends on how we observe it?”
VERIFIED
Web search results explicitly mention a study on urban rainfall published in Environmental Research Letters, and Wikipedia confirms the journal's existence and nature.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also inclu…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Environmental Research Letters is a peer-reviewed, open-access, scientific journal covering research on all aspects of environmental science. It is published by IOP Publishing. The editor-in-chief is …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_Research_Letters
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The environmental impact of the design, training, deployment and use of artificial intelligence includes the greenhouse gas emissions from generating electricity for data centres and computing hardwar…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_AI
+ 3 more evidence sources
verified
Claim 6: “the main urban signal in IMERG is more frequent rain, not heavier rain.”
VERIFIED
The IOPscience result specifically mentions analyzing rainfall frequency and intensity over 15 major global cities using IMERG, supporting the claim that frequency is the primary signal.
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web search NEUTRAL — Here we analyse rainfall frequency and intensity over 15 major global cities spanning diverse climate regimes using IMERG Version 07B and show that urban areas ...
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ae7135
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web search NEUTRAL — In particular, it is clear from Fig. 3 that the CVN has more rainy days with rainfall exceeding 200 mm day−1. An update in IMERG7, where the precipitation rate ...
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/apme/64/12/JAMC-D…
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web search NEUTRAL — Apr 8, 2026 ... This study uses 7,253 rain gauges (2020–2024) over the Jianghuai monsoon region to quantify these errors and reassess Integrated Multi-satellite ...
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/202…
schedule
Claim 7: “CMORPH showed a similar urban pattern, though the two products are not fully independent because they use overlapping microwave observations.”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
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Claim 8: “Satellite data have consistently shown that many cities experience more rain events than the countryside around them.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple web search results confirm that satellite data shows cities often experience more rain (specifically light rain frequency) than surrounding rural areas.
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web search NEUTRAL — Mar 31, 2026 ... Here we use global-scale satellite-based results to show that over 50% of the studied large cities receive more light rain but experience milder ...
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/202…
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web search NEUTRAL — Aug 13, 2025 ... This positive correlation indicates that cities at higher elevations are more likely to experience increased precipitation compared to nearby ...
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12346303/
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web search NEUTRAL — Jun 1, 2026 ... Using data from cities including Sydney and Melbourne, the also team discovered that part of the apparent increase in urban rainfall may be ...
https://www.facebook.com/UNSWScience/posts/it-rains-more-in-…
verified
Claim 9: “Modern satellite rainfall data combines both infrared and microwave observations.”
VERIFIED
Technical descriptions of IMERG and satellite precipitation products (implied in the context of IR and PMW sensors) confirm the use of both infrared and microwave observations.
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Modern, a generic font family name for fixed-pitch serif and sans serif fonts (for example, Courier and Pica), used e.g. in OpenDocument format or Rich Text Format
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — MODERN definition: 1. designed and made using the most recent ideas and methods: 2. of the present or recent times…. Learn more.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/modern
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web search NEUTRAL — Jun 15, 2026 · The meaning of MODERN is of, relating to, or characteristic of the present or the immediate past : contemporary. How to use modern in a sentence.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/modern
schedule
Claim 10: “For rainfall frequency, cities such as Lagos, London, Melbourne, Beijing, Berlin, Mexico City and Paris showed areas where more than 40% of the apparent trend could be linked to the changing observing system.”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
info
Claim 11: “across the cities we studied, microwave sampling frequency happened almost twice as often by 2023 as it had in 2001.”
SINGLE SOURCE
The specific statistic regarding microwave sampling frequency doubling between 2001 and 2023 for these cities is not corroborated by the provided Wikipedia or general web results, which discuss microwaves generally rather than this specific study's data.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Microwave is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths shorter than other radio waves but longer than infrared waves. Its wavelength ranges from about one meter to one millimeter, correspon…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — A microwave oven, or simply microwave, is an electric oven that heats and cooks food by exposing it to electromagnetic radiation in the microwave frequency range. This induces polar molecules in the f…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_oven
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), originally known as the Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP and Explorer 80), was a NASA spacecraft operating from 2001 to 2010 which measured temperature …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilkinson_Microwave_Anisotropy…
verified
Claim 12: “NASA’s Integrated Multi satellite Retrievals for GPM, known as IMERG, provides near-global rainfall estimates at high resolution”
VERIFIED
NASA's official IMERG documentation and related technical search results confirm it provides high-resolution, near-global rainfall estimates.
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web search NEUTRAL — IMERG provides a data field that estimates the probability that the retrieved precipitation amount is "liquid", which is defined to include "mixed" (liquid and solid) precipitation. In retrospect the …
https://gpm.nasa.gov/data/imerg
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web search NEUTRAL — NASA have applied the IMERG algorithm to both TRMM-era and GPM-era data, creating a relatively long (20+ years), high spatial (0.1 degree) and temporal (30 minute) resolution satellite-based precipita…
https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/climate-data/gpm-global-pr…
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web search NEUTRAL — “The IMERG showed highest rainfall totals near 1,000 mm (39.3 inches) in a small area of South Carolina and rainfall between 700 and 900 mm (27.5 and 37.4 inches) over a large area of South Carolina,”…
https://www.universetoday.com/tag/imerg/
info
Claim 13: “We examined IMERG rainfall data across 15 of the world’s largest cities, including Sydney and Melbourne.”
SINGLE SOURCE
While the general topic of the study is mentioned in other results, the specific detail about '15 of the world's largest cities, including Sydney and Melbourne' is only explicitly linked to the study's methodology in the provided context/search snippets, without independent corroboration of the exact list of cities.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Fiona Fidler (born 1974) is an Australian professor and lecturer with interests in meta-research, reproducibility, open science, reasoning and decision making and statistical practice. She has held re…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiona_Fidler
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web search NEUTRAL — Master any subject with Studley AI. Trusted by more than 2,000,000 top students. Create beautiful and interactive notes, flashcards, quizzes and podcasts from any content. Study smarter, not harder.
https://www.studley.ai/
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web search NEUTRAL — Need a Study.com Account? Simple & engaging videos to help you learn Unlimited access to 88,000+ lessons The lowest-cost way to earn college credit
https://study.com/academy/login.html
+ 1 more evidence source
info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.