Intense rainfall, such as the one that has fallen over Emilia-Romagna in Italy in recent weeks, has not become more likely in this region as a result of climate change.
This article is IPPEN. MEDIA in the course of a cooperation with the Climate.Table Professional Briefing – it was first published by Climate.Table on 01 June 2023.
But urbanization and land-use changes have increased the risk of flooding. This is the key finding of a new study by the international research group World Weather Attribution (WWA). On the basis of weather data and computer models, the researchers searched for indications of the influence of climate change on heavy rainfall – and could not detect any trend. The extremely heavy rains had led to widespread flooding in the area in May, in which at least 17 people died.
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The result is surprising. Previous attribution studies have often concluded that global warming makes intense rainfall more likely. This is because a warmer atmosphere can absorb more moisture, which is why heavy rainfall occurs more frequently and more intensely in many regions of the world. The effect was also observed in Emilia-Romagna, the research group says. But it was offset by changes in atmospheric air currents over the Mediterranean. "This means that the overall probability of heavy rainfall at this time of year remained unchanged in that particular region."
Violent floods and landslides occur again and again in the history of Emilia-Romagna in Italy: Extremely heavy rainfall such as that of the current spring is to be expected on average every 200 years. Prior to the recent heavy rainfall, the region suffered from an extreme drought – and unlike heavy rainfall, heat and drought became more likely due to climate change, according to a recently published WWA analysis. Ae