Whether you live in Seattle or the Sahara desert, the time has come to invest in a good raincoat or umbrella, a new study suggests. As global temperatures continue to rise, more "extreme rain" events--intense, cats-and-dogs downpours--can be expected, said thestudy, published Monday in the journalNature Climate Change. And that, scientists said, means an increased flood risk, particularly for the world's driest areas. The study challenges the idea that global warming is causingdry areas to become drierand wet areas wetter. "In both wet and dry regions, we see these great increases in heavy precipitation ," lead author Markus Donat, a climate scientist at the University of New South Wales, told Nature. Donat and his team collected data from 1951 to 2010 on extreme precipitation events from 11, 000 weather stations around the world, Nature reported. In that time, the number of days with "extreme precipitation" increased 1 percent to 2 percent per decade. "We found a strong relationship between global warming and an increase in rainfall, particularly in areas outside of the tropics," Donatsaid in a statement. "Importantly, this research suggests we will see these extreme rainfall events increases at regional levels in dry areas, not just as an average across the globe," Donat added. Peter Stott, a senior climate scientist at Met Office, told Climate Central that the study's findings are important, because more violent rainfall and flooding will "challenge our capability to adaptto a rapidly changing climate." As Nature reported, the research aligns witha 2015 study that found global warming has led to a sharp increase in record-breaking precipitation events. Donat told Nature that his study should come as a warning to world governments. The purpose of the study is to   _  .
encourage investors to start business in Seattle or the Sahara desert persuade people to take a raincoat or an umbrella with them challenge the previous findings of research on climate warn world governments to focus on global warming