Scientists warn that climate change has made it more likely that the torrential rains that caused deadly floods in Europe last month.
The researchers found that it is similar to the extreme rainfall event that caused severe flooding. Germany Belgium this Netherlands with Luxembourg Due to global warming, the probability of occurrence is 1.2 to 9 times higher.
As part of the World Weather Attribution Program, a rapid study conducted by climate scientists also found that due to human-induced temperature increases, the downpour of floods has increased by 3-19%.
They warned that as global temperatures continue to rise, the possibility of extreme rainfall and flooding will further increase.
Due to human activities (mainly burning fossil fuels) leading to greenhouse gas emissions, the heavy rainfall last month occurred in a world 1.2 degrees Celsius higher than in the late 1800s, which led to flooding.
The floods were the most severe near the Ahr, Erft and Meuse rivers, killing at least 184 people in Germany and 38 deaths in Belgium, and causing damage to houses, roads, railway lines and businesses. Some villages were cut off for several days.
A quick analysis said that the floods were caused by one to two days of heavy rainfall, already wet conditions, and local and river water levels.
The researchers focused their assessment on how climate change affects the two most flooded small areas and the wider Western Europe’s largest one-day and two-day rainfall events.
In the Ahr-Erft region of Germany and the Belgian part of the Meuse basin, the decline in rainfall broke records by a large margin, with a day’s rainfall of 93 mm (3.7 inches) around the Ahr and Erft rivers.
But because of the challenge of assessing the impact of climate change on events in small areas, scientists have expanded their analysis to understand the likelihood of similar extreme rainfall in large areas of Western Europe.
They are also concerned about other causes of rainfall rather than floods, partly because the floods destroyed river monitoring equipment.
A team of 39 scientists from the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States used weather records and computer models to compare the likelihood and intensity of such rainstorms in the current climate and in a world without 1.2C warming.
In larger areas, human-induced climate change has increased the number of declines in one day by 3-19%, and two-day events have increased by a similar number.
The researchers concluded that it increased the likelihood of similar rainfall events compared to rainfall events that caused floods, with the probability ranging from 1.2% or 20% to 9 times.
Such events are rare in any place, and may occur once every 400 years in the current climate, but such events may occur more frequently than in the wider western region. European area.
Rising global temperature increases the intensity and possibility of extreme rainfall, because a warm atmosphere can hold more water, leading to more torrential rains, and also affecting circulation patterns.
In a climate that is 2C warmer than the pre-industrial period, computer models indicate that the rainfall during a day of extreme events will further increase by 0.8-6%, and will further increase by 1.2-1.4%.
Professor Hayley Fowler of Newcastle University said: “Our most advanced climate models show that slow-moving extreme rainfall events will increase in a future warming world.
“This incident clearly shows that society is not resilient to the current extreme weather.
“We must reduce greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible, improve emergency warning and management systems, and make our infrastructure’climate resilient’-to reduce casualties and costs, and to make them more capable of withstanding these extreme flood events.”
Dr. Friederike Otto of Oxford University said: “These floods show us that even developed countries are not immune to the severe impact of extreme weather. We have seen and know that it gets worse with climate change.
“This is an urgent global challenge and we need to step up to deal with it. The science is clear and has existed for many years.”
The rapid attribution study was conducted after the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) conducted a major review of climate science. The review confirmed that human activities clearly contributed to the climate crisis, and the effects of deadly heat waves, floods and storms have been felt .
