Researchers sound the alarm after discovering 'fingerprint' following recent extreme weather events: 'This ... should be an eye-opener.'
"We will see more record-breaking events that push countries to the brink, no matter how prepared they are."
Fingerprints of climate change? What does that mean? “A new study showed that scientists can now spot the "fingerprint of climate change on extreme weather events", reported the BBC. The researchers' analysis revealed the shocking impacts of the climate crisis on the most deadly weather events from the past 20 years. ”Scientists at the World Weather Attribution group at Imperial College, in London, England are analyzing the data of some of the deadliest weather events. This study analyzed “the 10 deadliest weather events that the International Disaster Database has registered since 2004.” The statistics are frightening. “These lethal storms, floods, and heat waves claimed the lives of more than 570,000 people, WWA scientists said.” Here in the United States we experience hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, droughts, mudslides, and fires, where people are killed. But try to picture this in your mind: the deadliest of these researched weather events was the 2011 drought in Somalia, that killed an estimated 250,000 people. “Scientists found that the climate crisis affected the low rainfall that caused the drought, making it more likely and more extreme.”
“Dr. Friederike Otto, co-founder and lead of WWA, said, "This study should bean eye-opener for political leaders hanging on to fossil fuels that heat the planet and destroy lives, and [i]f we keep burning oil, gas and coal, the suffering will continue," she added, per BBC.” What were some of the other researched weather events? In 2022, the European heat waves wreaked havoc killing an estimated 53,000 people. In 2015, a heatwave in France killed more than 3,000 people, “and was made twice as likely because of the planet's overheating.”” The floods in India in 2013 and the tropical cyclones in Bangladesh (2007), Myanmar (2008), and the Philippines (2013) were all more likely to occur and be more extreme because of the climate crisis, the study revealed.” The research team went further and “created the study and conducted research that compared how likely a weather event was in the current climate versus in a world where the Industrial Age never happened — a world without billions of tons of carbon pollution in the atmosphere.” Why is this an important study? “Roop Singh of the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, which supports the WWA, warned: "With every fraction of a degree of warming, we will see more record-breaking events that push countries to the brink, no matter how prepared they are," per BBC. They are talking about fiercer storms with each fraction of a degree of global warming!
To those who still believe these are normal weather patterns unaffected by climate change, “[w]hile isolated weather events have always existed, this study confirms the scientific consensus that human-induced changes to the climate intensifies extreme weather events making them more likely, more extreme, and more deadly.” Something to think about.
Source:
https://www.thecooldown.com/outdoors/fingerprint-of-climate-change-extreme-weather-study/
