Climate change has doubled the potential for severe flooding in central Europe, and with further global warming caused by fossil fuels, such floods will become more destructive, according to a new study from World Weather Attribution, made available to CTK.
The analysis, to which experts from the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute contributed, showed that the recent rainfall caused by Storm Boris was the heaviest ever recorded by experts in central Europe. The rains were at least 7% stronger due to climate change.
If the planet warms by two degrees Celsius, which is expected by 2050, similar storms will bring at least 5% more precipitation and occur twice as often as now.
Scientists say that the huge storm that caused heavy rainfall in central Europe in mid-September was caused by a combination of weather phenomena, including cold air over the Alps and very warm air over the Mediterranean and Black Sea.
Based on historical data, experts say that with the current 1.3 degrees Celsius warming of the planet, a similar situation will occur once every 100 to 300 years. Although this was a very rare event, climate change has made it more intense and more likely in the future, according to the authors of the report.
“The 1997 and 2002 floods in central Europe were described as once-in-a-century events, but two decades later, global warming has increased from 0.5 to 1.3°C, and they’ve happened again,” said Bogdan H. Chojnicki, a Polish climatologist at Poznan University of Life Sciences and one of the study’s authors. “Moreover, Europe is warming even faster than the rest of the world.”
“We should fight to stop climate change to avoid huge social and economic costs,” he added.
The September flooding in central Europe has so far claimed 24 lives. Four days of rain broke rainfall records in many places. Dozens of measuring points recorded a century of water. in the Czech Republic, Moravia-Silesia and the Olomouc Region were affected the most. Five people have died and eight are still missing.
World Weather Attribution is an international collaboration of scientists who analyse, evaluate and report on the potential impact of climate change on extreme weather events such as storms, extreme precipitation, heat waves and droughts. They have published more than 80 studies to date.
