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CrowdScience: How fast can a raindrop cross the globe?

Discussion & Talk

Textures of rain on surface of ocean

07/06/2024 GMT

How fast can a raindrop cross the globe?

BBC World Service - CrowdScience, How fast can a raindrop cross the globe?

Could a raindrop from the UK travel all the way to New Zealand?

Listener Eleanor wants to know: is it possible for a raindrop to fall in the UK, then travel all the way to New Zealand and fall again as rain there?

CrowdScience listener Eleanor was lying in bed one rainy evening, listening to the radio. She lives in New Zealand, but happened to hear a weather forecast that told her it was raining in the UK too. 

She started wondering: could it be the same rain falling there and outside her window in New Zealand? Can a raindrop really travel all the way around the world? 

There are a number of routes the droplet could take, including traveling as moisture in the air. Presenter Caroline Steel meets meteorologist Kei Yoshimura, who puts his powerful weather simulation to work plotting the raindrop’s journey through the sky. 

What if the raindrop falls along the way and gets trapped? Where might it end up? Hydrologist Marc Bierkens talks Caroline through the detours it could take, ranging from short stop-offs in plant stems to extremely long delays in deep groundwater. 

Finally, could the drop of water make it to New Zealand by circulating through the world’s ocean currents? Oceanographer Kathy Gunn maps the droplet’s path through the ocean – and explains how climate change might affect its journey. 

Featuring: 
Prof. Kei Yoshimura, Professor of Isotope Meteorology, University of Tokyo 
Prof. Marc Bierkens, Professor of Earth Surface Hydrology at Utrecht University 
Dr. Kathy Gunn, Lecturer in Climate Sciences at the University of Southampton 

Presenter: Caroline Steel 
Producer: Phil Sansom 
Editor: Cathy Edwards 
Production Co-ordinator: Liz Tuohy 
Studio Manager: Tim Heffer
Additional recording: Knut Heinatz

(Photo: Textures of rain on the surface of the ocean.  Credit: Philip Thurston/Getty Images)

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