As per the findings of a research paper, extreme rainfall events like those that led to last month’s devastating floods in western Europe are 1.2 to nine times more likely to happen due to the consequences of human-induced climate change.
The floods in the countries of Germany, Belgium, Austria as well as heavy rainfall (more than 90 mm in a single day in Ahr region in Germany) in Italy, Croatia, Romania, Luxembourg, Italy, Netherlands and Switzerland between July 12-July 15 caused heavy damage to infrastructure and threw life out of gear with as many as 200 people killed.
The German rivers, Ahr and Erft and the Meuse river in Belgium were in spate due to the heavy rainfall and caused significant damage to roads, buildings, bridges, and other urban infrastructure. An estimate by the German Insurance Association (GDV) describes the cost of the event at €4.5 to €5.5 billion for Germany alone while damage in Belgium is estimated to exceed €0.35 billion.
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The study titled, ‘Rapid attribution of heavy rainfall events leading to the severe flooding in Western Europe during July 2021’ was published on August 23 by World Weather Attribution which is an international collaboration that analyses and communicates the possible influence of climate change on extreme weather events.
The research paper also mentioned that such downpours in the region are now 3 per cent to 19 per cent heavier because of human-caused global warming.
The scientists found a large amount of variability from year to year in these very local rainfall patterns, so to evaluate the influence of climate change, the scientists looked at data from a wider region.
They analysed how likely it is that similar extreme rainfall could occur anywhere across a larger area of Western Europe, including eastern France, western Germany, eastern Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and northern Switzerland, and how this has been affected by increasing global temperatures.
“The huge human and economic costs of these floods are a stark reminder that countries around the world need to prepare for more extreme weather events, and that we urgently need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to avoid such risks from getting even further out of hand,” Maarten van Aalst, Director, Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre and a contributor to the research was quoted.
Also, Friederike Otto, Associate Director at Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, who was also a part of the research team that conducted the study, stated that these floods have shown us that even developed countries are not safe from severe impacts of extreme weather that we have seen and known to get worse with climate change.
“This is an urgent global challenge and we need to step up to it. The science is clear and has been for years,” he said.
