Extreme rains cause deadly floods in the western region Germany with Belgium It has been so shocking that many people across Europe are asking whether climate change should be blamed.
Scientists have long said that climate change will lead to greater downpours. But scientists said on Friday that it will take at least several weeks to study to determine its role in last week’s relentless downpour.
“Floods always happen. They are like random events, like rolling dice. But we changed the probability of rolling dice,” said Ralph Tumi, a climate scientist at Imperial College London.
“Clear Link”: Experts say that European floods indicate an urgent need to curb climate change
Since the rains began, water has broken the banks of the river and flowed through the community, collapsed telephone towers, and destroyed houses along the way. As of Saturday, at least 157 people have been killed and hundreds are missing.
The flood shocked many people. German Chancellor Angela Merkel called the flood a disaster and vowed to support the victims through these “difficult and terrible times.”
Scientists say that overall, the global average temperature rise-now about 1.2 degrees Celsius higher than the pre-industrial average temperature-makes heavy rainfall more likely.
Warm air contains more water, which means more water will eventually be released. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the rainfall in Cologne, Germany exceeded 15 cm.
Johannes Quaas, professor of theoretical meteorology at the University of Leipzig, said: “When we encounter such a heavy rainfall, the atmosphere is almost like a sponge-you squeeze a sponge and the water will flow out.”
Climate scientists say that for every 1 degree increase in global average temperature, the water storage capacity of the atmosphere will increase by 7%, thereby increasing the likelihood of heavy rainfall events.
Other factors, including local geography and pressure system, also determine the impact on a particular area.
Geert Jan van Oldenborgh of World Weather Attribution is an international scientific network that analyzes how climate change causes specific weather events. He estimates that it may take several weeks to determine the link between rainfall and climate change.
“We are fast, but we are not so fast,” said van Oldenborgh, a climate scientist at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute.
Early observations indicate that the rainfall may be due to a low-pressure system staying over Western Europe for several days because the high-pressure system prevented it from moving east and north.
‘Happened so fast’
The floods occurred weeks after record heat waves in Canada and the United States killed hundreds of people. Scientists later stated that if there is no climate change, extreme high temperatures are “almost impossible”, and climate change has increased the likelihood of such events by at least 150 times.
Europe is also extremely hot. For example, Helsinki, the capital of Finland, has just experienced the hottest June since 1844.
This week’s rainfall broke the records of rainfall and river water levels in Western Europe.
Although researchers have been predicting the damage that climate change will do to the weather for decades, some people say that the speed of these extreme events has taken them by surprise.
Hayley Fowler, a hydroclimatologist at the University of Newcastle in the United Kingdom, said: “I am afraid that it seems to happen so quickly,” she points out, “Severe record-breaking events have occurred in a few weeks all over the world. “
Others said that the rainfall was not surprising, but the high death toll indicated that the area lacked effective early warning and evacuation systems to respond to extreme weather events.
“Rainfall does not mean disaster,” said Toumi of Imperial College London. “What is really disturbing is the number of deaths. …this is a wake-up call.”
The EU this week proposed a series of climate policies aimed at reducing EU greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
Stefan Rahmstorf, an oceanographer and climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said that reducing emissions is critical to mitigating climate change.
“We already have a warmer world with melting ice, rising sea levels, and more extreme weather events. This will be with us and the next generation,” Ramstorf said. “But we can still prevent it from getting worse.”
