Human-caused climate change has worsened floods that have killed hundreds of people and displaced millions in Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Sudan this year, according to a study published on Wednesday.
The intense rainy season has created a humanitarian crisis in large areas of the Sahel region bordering the Sahara desert.
A new analysis from scientists at the World Weather Attribution (WWA) network found that warming induced by fossil fuel use has increased flooding in Sudan.
The researchers, citing a previous WWA study of similar floods in 2022, also said climate change would have made this year’s torrential rains in the Niger and Lake Chad basins about five to 20 percent more intense.
“It’s going to get worse if we keep burning fossil fuels,” said Claire Barnes of the Center for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London.
Speaking at a briefing ahead of the study’s publication, he said that if global temperatures rise by two degrees Celsius (35.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, such rainfall “could happen every year”.
“This is very serious,” she said.
torrential rain and storm
Global warming isn’t just about rising temperatures – the extra heat trapped in the atmosphere and oceans has an impact and can result in more intense rains and storms.
The researchers said there is a clear link between extreme rainfall and a warming planet.
In the study, they focused on war-torn Sudan, where millions of displaced people have been displaced by conflict and have moved into flood-prone areas.
Scientists used modeling to compare weather patterns in our world with and without human-induced warming, and found that intense month-long rainfall was likely to be heavier and more frequent in parts of Sudan due to climate change.
At the current 1.3 degrees Celsius temperature, similar rainfall is expected to occur once every three years on average, and is about 10 percent more likely due to climate change, he said.
‘Incredibly worrying’
“These results are incredibly worrying,” said Izzin Pinto, a researcher at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, one of the study’s authors.
He warned that “with every degree of warming, the risk of extreme floods will continue to increase”, and called for “accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels” at the UN COP29 climate summit, when it takes place in Azerbaijan next month. .
Joyce Kimutai, a researcher at the Imperial Center for Environmental Policy, said the floods underlined the need for a loss and damage fund for countries devastated by climate change.
A key meeting ahead of COP29 earlier this month ended with countries agreeing to make little progress on how to finance a deal for poor countries.
“Africa contributes a small amount to carbon emissions globally, but is being hit hardest by extreme weather,” Kimutai said.
The researchers said the role of climate change in flooding is exacerbated by other man-made problems, and they called for better maintenance of dams and investment in early warning systems.
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