If you think that rivers only exist on land, think again. Atmospheric rivers are rivers in the sky.
They are long and narrow bands of moisture in the atmosphere and much longer than the world’s longest river. Atmospheric rivers (AR) are usually 2000 kilometres long and about 800 kilometres wide.
A paper by the Geophysical Research Letter describes ARs as “long meandering plumes of water vapour often originating over the tropical oceans that bring sustained, heavy precipitation to the west coast of North America and northern Europe” (Curry, et al, 2019).
It also produces heavy precipitation followed by severe flooding in many mid-latitude, westerly coast regions, Western Europe, west coast of Africa, the Iberian Peninsula, Iran, and New Zealand.
However, the lack of ARs can also result in droughts in many parts of the world, especially in Africa, Portugal, and Spain.
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