Climate change doubles chance of floods like those in Central Europe, report says

WARSAW, Poland — 

Climate alteration has made downpours similar the 1 that caused devastating floods successful cardinal Europe this period doubly arsenic apt to occur, a study said connected Wednesday, arsenic its technological authors urged policymakers to enactment to halt planetary warming.

The worst flooding to deed cardinal Europe successful astatine slightest 2 decades has near 24 radical dead, with towns strewn with mud and debris, buildings damaged, bridges collapsed and authorities near with a measure for repairs that runs into billions of dollars.

The study from World Weather Attribution, an planetary radical of scientists that studies the effects of clime alteration connected utmost upwind events, recovered that the 4 days of rainfall brought by Storm Boris were the heaviest ever recorded successful cardinal Europe.

It said that clime alteration had made specified downpours astatine slightest doubly arsenic apt and 7% heavier.

"Yet again, these floods item the devastating results of fossil fuel-driven warming," Joyce Kimutai, a researcher astatine Imperial College London's Grantham Institute and co-author of the study, said successful a statement.

"Until oil, state and ember are replaced with renewable energy, storms similar Boris volition unleash adjacent heavier rainfall, driving economy-crippling floods."

The study said that portion the operation of upwind patterns that caused the tempest - including acold aerial moving implicit the Alps and precise lukewarm aerial implicit the Mediterranean and the Black Seas - was unusual, clime alteration made specified storms much aggravated and much likely.

According to the report, specified a tempest is expected to hap connected mean astir erstwhile each 100 to 300 years successful today's clime with 1.3 degrees Celsius of warming from pre-industrial levels.

However, it said that specified storms volition effect successful astatine slightest 5% much rainfall and hap astir 50% much often than present if warming from pre-industrial levels reaches 2 C, which is expected to hap successful the 2050s.