Climate change can alter some of the compounds and conditions behind petrichor, but scientists have not shown that rain smells stronger, weaker or different to people worldwide. The likely effects are local and depend on how warming, drought, rain, plants and soil microbes interact.
What gives rain its earthy smell?
Petrichor is not a single chemical. It is a scent associated with rain that can include plant compounds, microbial compounds released from soil and, in some circumstances, an ozone-related smell. The American Chemical Society’s 2016 educational infographic describes these as several contributors to the distinctive smell of rain.
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Geosmin from soil microbes
Soil actinomycetes produce geosmin, an earthy-smelling compound that raindrops can release into the air. The American Chemical Society says the human nose can detect geosmin in air at less than 5 parts per trillion. That threshold helps explain why a small amount can be noticeable; it does not mean geosmin alone determines how strong the whole smell seems.
Plant compounds released by rain
Plants produce volatile compounds that can accumulate among rocks and in soil during dry weather. Rain can help release them into the air. The resulting scent depends on the mix of compounds present, not simply on how much rain falls.
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Why climate change could change the scent’s ingredients
Temperature, drought, elevated carbon dioxide and ozone can affect emissions of biogenic volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from plants. These responses vary by compound and by the conditions plants experience, so it would be misleading to say that warming automatically makes petrichor stronger.
A 2019 meta-analysis by Feng and colleagues screened more than 1,000 articles and included 74 studies. In the experimental subsets they analysed, warming increased isoprene emissions by 53%, while drought reduced them by 15%. Those figures describe changes in plant isoprene emissions in the reviewed experiments—not changes in the smell of rain or universal forecasts for future ecosystems. The authors also found that isoprene and monoterpenes did not respond identically to climate drivers.
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What drought and warming experiments show
A six-year climate-manipulation study in a temperate heath ecosystem, published in 2016, illustrates why effects depend on timing and treatment. Extended summer drought reduced monoterpene emissions after the drought treatment, while night-time warming increased total emissions—mainly alpha-pinene—in April. Elevated carbon dioxide tended to lower seasonal-average emissions, and combined treatments interacted.
The study detected 16 monoterpenes. Its reported average of 21.7 ± 6.8 micrograms per square metre of ground area per hour applies to untreated heath over the measurement period. These were ecosystem emissions, not measurements of how people perceived petrichor. Together, the results show that the same habitat can produce different responses across seasons and under different combinations of stress.
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What dryland rewetting research adds
An abstract presented at the 2026 EGU General Assembly by Ghirardo and colleagues reports simulated soil rewetting across an aridity gradient in Israel. The researchers identified 58 VOCs in the rewetting emissions they studied. Fluxes were dominated by sesquiterpenes and benzenoids and were linked to climate region, soil aridity and microbial community composition.
The abstract reports VOC fluxes of 1–3.5 nanomoles per square metre of ground area per second and notes their potential to contribute to ozone and secondary organic aerosol formation. This is evidence that rewetting dryland soils can trigger complex emissions under the study conditions. It is not a long-term record of climate-driven changes in rain scent, nor a measurement of what people smell across Israel or elsewhere.
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Why the effects will differ by region
Climate change also alters the weather patterns that set up dry spells and rain, but not in the same way everywhere. The IPCC’s 2021 Sixth Assessment Report, Working Group I, Chapter 12, assesses increases in the frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation across many land regions with good observational coverage. It also assesses increased agricultural and ecological drought in specified drying regions. Neither finding means every location will experience the same sequence of drought and rain.
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsLocal vegetation and soil microbes shape which compounds are available; drought duration, rainfall intensity and season influence when and how they are released. Those factors help explain why climate-related changes to the ingredients may be detectable in one ecosystem but differ in another.
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What scientists have not established
The studies described here measure plant emissions, soil emissions or climate hazards; they do not track human-perceived rain scent worldwide over time. The evidence therefore supports mechanisms by which climate change could alter the compounds involved in petrichor, and shows regional variation in some emissions. It does not establish a global trend in whether the smell after rain has become stronger, weaker, more pleasant or less pleasant to people.
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