Clipmark

The band of heavy precipitation indicates the intertropical convergence zone. The new findings are based on sediment cores from lakes and lagoons on Palau, Washington, Christmas and Galapagos islands. Credit: University of Washington

Earth's most prominent rain band, near the equator, has been moving north at an average rate of almost a mile (1.4 km) a year for three centuries, likely because of a warming world, scientists say.

The band supplies fresh water to almost a billion people and affects climate elsewhere.

While water is increasingly becoming a hot commodity around the globe, there is no global water shortage. Human demand for water has tripled in the past 50 years, by some estimates. Yet Earth has essentially as much water now as ever — about 360 quintillion gallons.

Rather, human populations put ever more pressure on local and regional water resources, which in some cases

are dwindling with climate change. The water still exists, it just gets dumped elsewhere.