Climate change will likely worsen monsoons affecting one-fifth of the world’s population, new research suggests. The study, published Friday in Science Advances, assessing data from the past million years, supports previous research showing global warming caused by burning fossil fuels like gas, oil and coal, will lead to more unpredictable and extreme rainfall during South Asia’s monsoon season. While monsoons always dump large amounts of water, the risk of “catastrophically strong” seasons is made worse by climate change, Anders Levermann, a professor of the dynamics of the climate system at the Potsdam Institute in Germany who was not involved in the new paper, told the New York Times. (New York Times $; Climate Signals Background: Cyclonic storms)