The record-setting rainfall that hit Central Europe in mid September was made roughly twice as likely and 7% more severe by climate change, according to an analysis released Wednesday. The 36-page study , conducted by scientists affiliated with World Weather Attribution (WWA), looked at the causes of the extreme rain that peaked from September 12 until September 15. Called Storm Boris, it hit many countries including Poland, Austria, and the Czech Republic, and set off flooding that killed at least 24 people. The authors, whose work wasn’t peer reviewed, warned that Storm Boris was a sign of what’s to come. “This is definitely what we will see much more of in the future,” Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London and co-author of the study, told the BBC . “[It] is the absolute fingerprint signature of climate change… that records are broken by such a large margin.” The heavy rainfall was caused by a Vb (pronounced “five-b”) depression that “forms when cold polar air flows from the north over the Alps, meeting very warm air in Southern Europe,” according to a WWA statement that accompanied the study. The damage came partly from the fact that the storm lingered for many days, with rain falling on saturated ground and overflowing bodies of water. The WWA scientists didn’t determine if the duration was affected by climate change; however, in general, the affect of climate change on the jet stream, which normally helps push weather patterns through the continent quickly, could play a role in causing storms to linger, experts say. “These types of blocking situations and meandering jet stream-induced situations are increasing in frequency,” Hayley Fowler, a climate scientist at Newcastle University who wasn’t involved in the study, told NPR . Other factors in the Stom Boris disaster were […]
Click here to view original web page at www.commondreams.org