Climate change is making extreme rains in Spain more frequent and more likely, scientists say

Human-caused climate change has made Spain’s rainfall about 12 percent heavier and doubled the likelihood of a storm as intense as this week’s deluge in Valencia, according to a quick but partial analysis Thursday by World Weather Attribution, a group of international scientists studying global warming. role in extreme weather.

Monstrous flash floods in Spain claimed at least 158 ​​liveswith 155 deaths confirmed in the eastern region of Valencia alone. An unknown number of people are still missing and more victims may be found. Crews searched for bodies in stuck cars and waterlogged buildings Thursday.

World Weather Attribution said climate change was the most likely explanation for the extreme rain in southern Spain, as a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture, leading to heavier downpours. The group noted that its analysis is not a complete and detailed attribution study because the scientists did not use climate models to simulate the event in a world without human-caused warming.

Scientists looked at historical rainfall observations, which they say indicate that one-day bursts of rain in this region are increasing as emissions from burning fossil fuels warm the planet.

“We haven’t had time yet to do a full attribution study of the floods that just happened in Spain. But what we’ve been able to do is look at rainfall observations in the area,” said WWA expert Clair Barnes. “And based on recorded precipitation, we estimate that similar events have become about 12 percent more intense and probably twice as likely as they would have been in a pre-industrial climate, about 1.3 degrees (Celsius) cooler, without human-caused climate change.”

“I’ve heard people say this is the new normal,” added Barnes, a statistician who researches extreme weather events and climate change at Imperial College London. “Given that we are currently on track for 2.6 degrees of warming, or thereabouts, this century, we are only halfway to the new normal.”

Since the mid-1800s, the world has already warmed by 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit), up from previous estimates of 1.1 or 1.2 degrees, as it includes last year’s record heat, according to the Program United Nations Environment. The annual emissions gap report released last week.

The world is on track to reach 3.1 degrees Celsius (5.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times. But if nations somehow do everything they promised in the targets they presented to the UN, that warming could be limited to 2.6 degrees Celsius (4.7 degrees Fahrenheit), the report said.

Ben Clarke, researcher at the Center for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, pointed out that a a powerful typhoon made landfall in Taiwan on Thursday, right after the floods in Spain.

“These back-to-back events show how dangerous climate change is already with just 1.3 degrees Celsius of warming,” Clarke said in a statement. ___

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