A recent study has revealed that human-caused climate change has doubled the likelihood and intensified the torrential rains that caused the devastating floods in Central Europe earlier this month.
Countries such as Romania, Poland, Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, and Germany, and finally Italy, were severely affected by Storm Boris, which caused the death of 24 people and significant damage to local infrastructure.
The rains, which lasted four days, were described as the most intense ever recorded in the region.
According to the World Weather Attribution, such events were twice as likely due to global warming caused by the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas.
The World Weather Attribution, a group of scientists who rapidly study climate attribution, analyzed how climate change contributed to extreme weather events like this, using weather data and climate models to estimate the likelihood of such intense rains in pre-industrial times when temperatures were about 1.28 degrees Celsius lower than today.
Joyce Kimutai, the lead author of the study and a climate researcher at Imperial College London, highlighted how the floods represent a clear example of the devastating consequences of global warming, accelerated by the massive use of fossil fuels.
Although the study has not been peer-reviewed, it followed scientifically valid methods to assess the influence of climate change on such events.
According to Friederike Otto, the study coordinator, breaking such high weather records is not normal.
These extreme events are a clear ”fingerprint” of climate change and can only be observed in a rapidly warming world.
The most affected areas include regions along the border between Poland and the Czech Republic and parts of Austria, especially in urban areas located along major rivers.
Although the death toll was lower compared to the catastrophic floods of 1997 and 2002, infrastructure and emergency systems were still overwhelmed in many cases.
In response to the crisis, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, visited the affected areas, promising billions of euros in aid for Central European countries.
She announced that funds from the EU Solidarity Fund would be made available quickly to repair damaged infrastructure, while 10 billion euros from the Cohesion Fund would be allocated for the most urgent repairs.
The World Weather Attribution warned that if global warming reaches 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the likelihood of devastating storms like the four-day one will increase by 50% compared to current forecasts.
This scenario raises serious concerns about the regions’ ability to cope with increasingly frequent and intense extreme events.
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