MORE LOCALISED FLOODING is expected as a consequence of climate change. Increased levels of greenhouse gases have changed the intensity of rainfall, with much heavier downpours resulting.
Two independent groups have presented findings that show that “heavy precipitation events” have become more common over vast areas of the northern hemisphere. These deliver rainfalls that produce localised flooding.
The findings represent some of the first results that are able to link climate change and extreme rainfall. Details are published this morning in the journal Nature.
Scientists in Canada and Scotland, led by Prof Francis Zwiers, joined together to look at heavy precipitation. “Here we show that human-induced increases in greenhouse gases have contributed to the observed intensification of heavy precipitation events,” they write.
In a separate study, Prof Pardeep Pall and colleagues in Britain, Switzerland and Japan focused on the UK floods of autumn 2000. This was the wettest autumn in England and Wales since records began in 1766.
They found that greenhouse-gas emissions increased the risk of flooding in England and Wales by more than 20 per cent, and in two out of three cases by more than 90 per cent.
