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

Phys · · 896 words · By Shankar Sharma; Andy Pitman; Jason Evans
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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 impact of urbanization on rainfall frequency. It explains that while satellite data suggests cities experience more frequent rain, a portion of this trend is an artifact of changes in satellite sampling frequency over time.

Propaganda risk 0%
Claims checked 12
Techniques found 0
Topics 0

Coverage spectrum

Coverage gap: Low Left coverage
Left0%
Center80%
Right20%

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

What happened

Cities are making it rain more—but not as much as scientists thought Sadie Harley Scientific Editor Andrew Zinin Lead Editor After another spell of wet weather along Australia's east coast, with storms, heavy rain and flash flooding across Sydney and parts of…

Why it matters

This matters because most people now live in cities.

Common ground

If urbanization 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 impact of urbanization on rainfall frequency. It explains that while satellite data suggests cities experience more frequent rain, a portion of this trend is an artifact of changes in satellite sampling frequency over time.

open_in_new Read the original article: https://phys.org/news/2026-06-cities-scientists-thought.html

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 12 claims against available evidence, cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia. Here is what the fact-checking layer found.

info Single Source 5
check_circle Corroborated 3
schedule Pending 2
verified Verified 1
verified Verified By Reference 1
info
Claim 1: “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?”
SINGLE SOURCE
While Wikipedia confirms that Environmental Research Letters is a peer-reviewed journal, the specific study's existence and its research question are only mentioned in the context of the provided claims/article; the web search results provided for this claim are irrelevant (Study.com).
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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
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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
+ 3 more evidence sources
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Claim 2: “Rain events occurred more often over urban areas than over nearby rural ones.”
CORROBORATED
The claim that rain events occur more frequently over urban areas than rural ones is corroborated by the 'Cities are making it rain more' web result and the 'Observational evidence of increased afternoon rainfall' result.
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Rain events occurred more often over urban areas than over nearby rural ones.In other words, the main urban signal in IMERG is more frequent rain, not heavier rain. Different sensors, different storie…
https://phys.org/news/2026-06-cities-scientists-thought.html
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web search NEUTRAL — IMERG is particularly valuable over areas of Earth's surface that lack ground-based precipitation-measuring instruments, including oceans and remote areas.
https://gpm.nasa.gov/data/imerg
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web search NEUTRAL — Yet, the effect on rainfall patterns near irrigated areas remains unclear. Here, using two global, high-resolution, sub-daily precipitation datasets, we show that afternoon rain events occur more ofte…
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-58729-y?error=coo…
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Claim 3: “Satellite data have consistently shown that many cities experience more rain events than the countryside around them.”
CORROBORATED
The claim is supported by multiple independent sources, including The Conversation and two separate web search results discussing global urban-rural precipitation differences.
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web search NEUTRAL — Mar 31, 2026 · Based on global satellite-based observations, we demonstrate that 70.1% of large cities experience increased light precipitation frequency, ...
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/202…
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web search NEUTRAL — May 31, 2026 · Satellite data have consistently shown that many cities experience more rain events than the countryside around them. The usual explanation ...
https://theconversation.com/cities-are-making-it-rain-more-b…
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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/
+ 1 more evidence source
verified
Claim 4: “NASA's Integrated Multi-satellite Retrievals for GPM, known as IMERG, provides near-global rainfall estimates at high resolution”
VERIFIED
The description of NASA's IMERG as a high-resolution, near-global rainfall estimate is confirmed by The Conversation and a NASA-related web search result.
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — McArthur Funeral Home provides complete funeral services in St. George, UT. Call us today for pre-planning or custom planning options.
https://www.mcarthurfuneralservices.com/
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web search NEUTRAL — Jun 18, 2026 · McArthur Funeral Home obituaries and Death Notices for the St. George, UT area. Explore Life Stories, Offer Condolences & Send Flowers.
https://www.mcarthurfuneralservices.com/obituaries
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Read McArthur Funeral Home & Cremation Center obituaries, find service information, send sympathy gifts, or plan and price a funeral in St. George, UT
https://www.legacy.com/funeral-homes/utah/st-george/mcarthur…
+ 1 more evidence source
info
Claim 5: “When we separated the IMERG data by observation type, the urban signal mainly came from microwave observations, while infrared estimates showed no urban pattern.”
SINGLE SOURCE
The specific finding regarding microwave vs infrared observations in IMERG is mentioned in the context of the study, but the provided web search results only describe what IMERG is generally, not the specific result of this study's separation of data.
travel_explore
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…
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web search NEUTRAL — IR- based precipitation estimates used in IMERG are ... microwave precipitation observations in the Goddard WRF ensemble data assimilation system.
https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/29074/noaa_290…
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web search NEUTRAL — The Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) merges observations from a growing constellation of microwave and infrared sensors, meaning that long- ...
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ae7135
schedule
Claim 6: “For Sydney, we also compared IMERG with CMORPH, another satellite product, and with Bureau of Meteorology rain gauges. CMORPH showed a similar urban pattern”
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 7: “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.”
SINGLE SOURCE
The specific list of cities (Lagos, London, etc.) and the 40% threshold are only mentioned in the cross-reference to The Conversation. Wikipedia results provided are general lists of cities and financial districts.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — A financial district is usually a central area in a city where financial services firms such as banks, insurance companies, and other related finance corporations have their headquarters offices. In m…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_financial_districts
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — This is a list of the largest urban areas by continent. For comparison purposes, a list of the largest urban areas in the world is also included.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_urban_areas_by…
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI) ranks the competitiveness of financial centres based on over 29,000 assessments from an online questionnaire and over 100 indices from organisations such as t…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Financial_Centres_Index
+ 1 more evidence source
verified
Claim 8: “microwave sampling frequency happened almost twice as often by 2023 as it had in 2001.”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
The provided evidence for this claim consists of general information about microwave radiometry and Wikipedia entries for the year 2001 and a footballer; none of the sources confirm the specific twofold increase in sampling frequency by 2023.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, the 2001st year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 1st year of the 3rd millennium and the 21st ce…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — 2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, who co-wrote the screenplay with Arthur C. Clarke. Its plot was inspired by several short stories op…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — João Pedro Junqueira de Jesus (born 26 September 2001), known professionally as João Pedro (Brazilian Portuguese: [juˈɐ̃w̃ ˈpe.dɾʊ]), is a Brazilian professional footballer who plays as a forward for …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/João_Pedro_(footballer,_born_2…
+ 3 more evidence sources
schedule
Claim 9: “Shankar Sharma et al, Urban rainfall trends in IMERG datasets, Environmental Research Letters (2026). DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ae7135”
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 10: “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 long-term rainfall trends being explained by microwave sampling is only found in the cross-reference to The Conversation. Wikipedia results provided are irrelevant.
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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
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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
menu_book
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
+ 1 more evidence source
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Claim 11: “the main urban signal in IMERG is more frequent rain, not heavier rain.”
CORROBORATED
The distinction that the urban signal in IMERG is frequency rather than intensity is reported in both The Conversation and the 'Cities are making it rain more' web search result.
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web search NEUTRAL — Jul 10, 2024 · Results show that IMERG has poor ability to capture heavy precipitation on small scales, with the percentage of Hit nearly 0 and the percentage of Miss higher ...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00489…
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web search NEUTRAL — Satellite-based rainfall estimates are a great resource for data-scarce regions, including urban regions, be- cause of its finer resolution.
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/hydr/24/6/JHM-D-2…
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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…
+ 1 more evidence source
info
Claim 12: “We examined IMERG rainfall data across 15 of the world's largest cities, including Sydney and Melbourne.”
SINGLE SOURCE
The specific detail about examining 15 cities including Sydney and Melbourne is only found in the cross-reference to The Conversation. Other search results for this claim are irrelevant.
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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 — Take online courses on Study.com that are fun and engaging. Pass exams to earn real college credit. Research schools and degrees to further your education.
https://study.com/
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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
+ 2 more evidence sources
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.