The rising waters that killed at least 24 people from Poland to Romania this month are twice as likely to occur in today’s climate as in a world without man-made global warming, a study found.Sergei Gapon/AFP via Getty Images CLIMATEWIRE | BRUSSELS — Burning oil, gas and coal is increasing the probability and ferocity of flood-bringing rains in Central Europe, scientists warn. The rising waters that killed at least 24 people from Poland to Romania this month are twice as likely to occur in today’s climate as in a world without man-made global warming, according to an analysis published Wednesday . The scientists also found that the risk and severity of such disasters will increase even further as the planet continues to warm. “Unless we stop burning fossil fuels, this rainfall and the associated flooding will only get worse,” said Friederike Otto, a climatologist at Imperial College London and co-author of the study. The analysis, published by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) consortium of scientists specializing in rapid disaster attribution studies, also found that the rainfall that triggered the floods was “by far” the heaviest ever recorded in the region. To determine the role climate change played in the flooding, the WWA group used peer-reviewed methods to compare how four-day heavy rainfall events across Poland, Germany, Austria, Romania, Slovakia and the Czech Republic have changed. …
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