At least 180 people lost their lives in the devastating floods in mid-July. With rising temperatures, such extreme weather events will occur more frequently, researchers confirm in a current analysis.
Offenbach – According to a study, climate change increases the likelihood of extreme rainfall and thus of flood disasters, such as the one that killed at least 180 people in July in Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia.
This is the conclusion reached by an international team of scientists including those from the German Weather Service (DWD) in an investigation.
Under the current climatic conditions, it is to be expected that a certain region in Western Europe will be hit by such a devastating event about once every 400 years. Several such events are to be expected within the entire area that the scientists were looking at.
As temperatures continue to rise, such extreme heavy rain becomes more frequent. A warmer atmosphere can also store more water. If it gets 0.8 degrees warmer again, the frequency increases to every 300 years, and the intensity of the heavy rain continues to increase.
The likelihood of disasters increases
For their analysis, the scientists looked at France, western Germany, the eastern part of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and the north of Switzerland as regions and asked how likely it is to experience extreme heavy rain here and to what extent this is influenced by rising temperatures around the world. The likelihood of such catastrophes has increased in this region by a factor of between 1.2 and 9, and the maximum amount of rain is between 3 and 19 percent greater than it used to be. An example from the scientists: If the probability is increased by a factor of 5, this means that an event occurs on average every 400 years instead of every 2000.
Frank Kreienkamp from the German Weather Service (DWD) explained that the factor could not be specified more precisely because, among other things, different climate models were used as the basis, the predictions of which differed. The figures showed a very clear trend towards more frequent extreme weather due to climate change.
Growing risks
The effects could far exceed the previous storms, said Kreienkamp. “The local and national Western European authorities must be aware of these growing risks from heavy rain in order to be better prepared for possible future extreme weather events,” explained the head of the DWD’s Potsdam Regional Climate Office. Enno Nilson from the Federal Institute for Hydrology stated that the findings would be included in analyzes to improve flood protection.
In the region around the rivers Ahr and Erft, an average of 93 liters of rain per square meter had fallen per day – a high since the weather records began. According to the information, at least 220 people died in the floods around the river Maas in Belgium.
The 39 scientists compared the effects of today’s climate with the end of the 19th century, when the global average temperature was 1.2 degrees lower. The work, for which weather records and computer simulations were analyzed, was created as part of the World Weather Attribution Initiative, which investigates the possible effects of climate change on extreme weather events. dpa
