A study published on Tuesday, 24 August, by World Weather Attribution (WWA)—an initiative of scientists from various countries around the world—indicates that climate change has increased the likelihood of extreme precipitation events similar to those observed in Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands during mid-July this year by a factor between 1.2 and 9.
“It is difficult to analyse the climate change influence on heavy rainfall at very local levels, but we were able to show that, in Western Europe, greenhouse gas emissions have made events like these more likely”, commented Sjoukje Philip, a climate researcher at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) and one of 39 contributors to the study.
According to the report, current global warming (+1.2°C compared to preindustrial times) not only makes such extreme rainfall up to 9 times more likely in these parts of Europe but also increases the intensity of the maximum one-day rainfall event by about 3% to 19%.
Moreover, the WWA estimates that showers similar to those that occurred between 12 and 15 July can be expected to affect a specific region of Western Europe about once every 400 years. This means that several such events are likely to occur in Western Europe during this period.
Highlighting the human and economic costs of the flooding caused by mid-July’s extreme rains (more than 220 deaths in Germany and Belgium and billions of euros in damage), Maarten van Aalst, the director of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Climate Centre, has thus called on “countries around the world” to “prepare for more extreme weather events”.
He went on to say, “We urgently need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to avoid such risks from getting even further out of hand”.
See the study: https://bit.ly/386xypx (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)